Those who care to read this SNLC title (all 3.45 of you) may well be thinking: "Oh jeez, not another DK diary about panicking over the polls". I suppose there's some justification for that judgment. However, I certainly don't pretend to be Nate Silver or anyone 1/10 as sophisticated. The source of the numbers under (superficial) discussion here is obvious from the title: "Likes" on Facebook. Some of those numbers do look a bit disconcerting, such as (as of 9:30 PM CDT)
Joe Biden: 470,398
Paul Ryan VP: 4,927,154
Kind of scary, don't you think? More below the flip:
First, here are some others:
As of 3:15 PM CDT:
Barack Obama: 31,078,969
Mitt Romney: 10,132,199
Not bad, huh? However, last night, as of ~7 PM, these were the respective numbers:
Obama: 31,049,770
Romney: 10,021,327
In other words, over the past 20 hours, Romney gained 110K FB Likes. President Obama gained 29K. Furthermore, to confuse you further, as of just about 9:31 PM CDT:
Obama: 31,088,761
Romney: 10,175,597
So comparing 3 PM today to 9:31 PM, Obama gained 10K LiKes. Romney gained 43K Likes. In both absolute and percentage terms, Romney is doing better in terms of building up his "Likes" numbers. However, one has to acknowledge that President Obama started with 4 years of "backlog" FB Likes simply by dint of being POTUS for just about the last 4 years, so that in a sense, he's closer to maxing out his growth rate, and Romney has a lot more room to grow, because he started later and with less.
However, there's another stat hidden among the "Like" numbers, the "talking about this" numbers:
Obama: 2,963,937
Romney: 2,955,817
In terms of %, the latter set is obviously closer to what the real numbers on Nov. 6 will turn out to be. I would rather it be closer to the "Likes" number spread, of course, but that's not realistic.
Getting back to the VP ticket, in spite of the horribly lopsided "Likes" favoring Ryan, there is another, much smaller comparison on the snarkier side, as of 9:34 PM
"Paul Ryan Is A Douchebag": 104,333 Likes, 107,313 talking about this
"Joe Biden is a Moron": 409 Likes, 269 talking about this
There's also:
"Paul Ryan is Evil": 403 Likes, 307 talking about this
Going downballot, focusing on just the MO race of most interest nationwide (as of 9:35 PM):
Claire McCaskill: 55,789 Likes
Todd Akin: 67,382 Likes
Not good, obviously. A little better, separately from the above, but by sheer force of number magnitude, less important:
Senator Claire McCaskill: 13,602 Likes
Congressman Todd Akin: 5,208 Likes
Also:
Todd Akin Should Step Down: 771 Likes
Citizens for a McCaskill-free Missouri: 1,041 Likes
Tallies of FB "Likes" aren't traditional polls, of course. FB stats aren't parsed by state, city or region, especially when it comes to the main Presidential candidates. But if anything, FB "Likes" can serve as informal, running, cumulative "polls", even though when it comes to FB "Likes", no one is putting any questions to people about views on the issues, preferred candidates and such. On FB, people are free to "Like" whatever person, company, organization, cause, etc. that they want, i.e. it's self-selecting. On FB, no one is stopping you on the street to ask your opinion or calling on the phone to interrupt your day. You can interpret this as a lack of bias, in its way.
Of course, not everyone is on FB, not by a long shot. But also, the overwhelming majority of people don't get polled. Maybe FB "Likes" have something to say as snapshots of the mood of the populace, or at least that portion which spends enough time on FB. Given some of these numbers, to those on DK who ridicule and dismiss "concern trolls", just remember: there's a lot to be concerned about.
Feel free to look at local races of interest in your area and post some FB "Like" numbers, if so inclined. Or if not so inclined, you can observe the usual SNLC protocol, namely your loser stories of the week.....