What Would Happen If Facebook ‘Likes’ Decided The Next US President?

Political analysis site FiveThirtyEight has released an interactive map detailing the Facebook likes of each Republican and Democratic Presidential-hopeful across the U.S states; The research found that if Facebook likes translated into Presidential votes the world would be topsy-turvy.

Bernie Sanders would be the Democratic nominee by a margin of nearly three to one against Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump would be more popular than Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio combined. What is most strange is that retired American neurosurgeon, and current wooden spoon of the Republican nomination, Ben Carson would be the next American president.

Carson has the greatest share of Facebook likes across the country (26 per cent). This is a far cry from the reality of voters— Carson received just nine per cent of the vote during the Iowa caucus and came last in the recent New Hampshire caucus.

FiveThirtyEight Researchers Matthew Conlen and Reuben Fischer-Baum are quick to point out that Facebook likes are not votes and the sample is not representative of the country. The researchers said on the page:

“According to the Pew Research Center, 58 per cent of American adults use Facebook. But this share is not a representative sample of the country — Facebook users are disproportionately young (although not as young as users of other social media networks), low-income and female.

“The sample may be even more skewed because only some people on Facebook have liked a presidential candidate’s page and because those pages haven’t existed for the same amount of time.”

During the most recent Republican presidential debate, Carson incorrectly quoted Joseph Stalin. Carson said during the final moments of the debate: “Joseph Stalin said if you want to bring America down you have to undermine three things—our spiritual life, our patriotism, and our morality,”

Turns out Stalin never said that, which Twitter was quick to point out:

pic.twitter.com/DBnzBxbq0l
— Rob Beschizza (@Beschizza) February 14, 2016

BEN CARSON: You know, Joseph Stalin once said, “10 years ago we had Steve Jobs, Johnny Cash, and Bob Hope”
— Jason O. Gilbert (@gilbertjasono) February 14, 2016

Mod: Dr. Carson, would you like to weigh in? Ben Carson: Here’s something I read in an email that was forwarded to me at my Hotmail account — Hayes Brown (@HayesBrown) February 14, 2016

“Like Abraham Lincoln said, ‘Don’t trust what you read on the Internet.'” – Ben Carson, basically — Matt Ford (@fordm) February 14, 2016

“Ben Carson is like dry water.” Joseph Stalin
— John Lurie (@lurie_john) February 14, 2016

To read more about the map, click here.

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