Federal by-elections and twitter - how are the candidates doing?

Here are some stats on Twitter use by the candidates in the three current federal by-elections.  I will post a new list of stats in a week.

Twitter Followers

1. 2884 Chris Turner - Green Calgary Centre
2. 2649 Joan Crockatt - Conservative Calgary Centre
3.  847 Dale Gann - Conservative Victoria
4.  769 Paul Summerville - Liberal Victoria
5.  493 Grant Humes - Liberal Durham
6.  491 Murray Rankin - NDP Victoria
7.  411 Harvey Locke - Liberal Calgary Centre
8.  374 Erin O'Toole - Conservative Durham
9.  364 Larry O'Connor - NDP Durham
10.  253 Dan Meades - NDP Calgary Centre
11.  218 Donald Galloway - Green Victoria
12.   21 Edward Yaghledjian - Green Durham

What I take from this is that only two of the candidates were serious Twitter users before the election.   Two more were on Twitter but had not really made full use of it yet.   The other eight are all new to Twitter and using it. Interestingly none of the candidates in Durham seem to have been major social media users.

Twitter followers is not everything, how about tweets in the last week?   Here is a table of the candidates tweets from October 23rd to October 30th (I do not have the stats for Chris Turner, Green candidate in Calgary Centre because I made an error on the 23rd when I saved the file.   Durham Green candidate Edward Yaghledjian entered the race late so I do not have earlier data for him)

1. 55 Paul Summerville - Liberal Victoria
2. 50 Donald Galloway - Green Victoria
3. 39 Erin O'Toole - Conservative Durham
4. 27 Murray Rankin - NDP Victoria
5. 26 Dan Meades - NDP Calgary Centre
6. 24 Harvey Locke - Liberal Calgary Centre
7.  9 Grant Humes - Liberal Durham
8.  8 Joan Crockatt - Conservative Calgary Centre
9.  3 Dale Gann - Conservative Victoria
10.  3 Dan Meades - NDP Calgary Centre

What I find interesting here is that two Victoria candidates represent 43% of the tweets in the last week.   Four of the candidates are quiet online.

Who about new followers?

1. 144 Dan Meades NDP - Calgary Centre
2. 106 Larry O'Connor - NDP Durham
3.  76 Murray Rankin - NDP Victoria
4.  58 Harvey Locke - Liberal Calgary Centre
5.  55 Paul Summerville - Liberal Victoria
6.  49 Donald Galloway - Green Victoria
7.  40 Joan Crockatt - Conservative Calgary Centre
8.  36 Erin O'Toole - Conservative Durham
9.  36 Grant Humes - Liberal Durham
10.  34 Dale Gann - Conservative Victoria

The NDP clearly seems to be the best at getting people to follow their candidates.

In my judgement the top Twitter users among the candidates:

1. Chris Turner - Green Calgary Centre (I have some idea of how many tweets he sent out in the last week)
2. Paul Summerville - Liberal Victoria
3. Murray Rankin - NDP Victoria

Overall you have to consider that these candidates are trying to reach 100,000 voters.   The candidates are nowhere close enough to having enough Twitter followers for their social media campaign to have any measurable impact on the election.