• by Philip Rosenstein , Staff Writer, August 1, 2016

The past two weeks saw the nominations of two of the most disliked politicians aspiring to win our country’s highest office in recent memory. Despite the negativity, the Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia and the Republican National Convention in Cleveland generated an enormous splash online.

According to Brandwatch, the social-media monitoring site, the DNC far outdid the RNC in terms of Twitter mentions. Over the four days of the RNC, there were about 5.8 million mentions of the convention, compared to 12 million mentions of the Democratic convention over the four days of that event.

On day four of both the RNC and DNC, when the party nominees officially accepted their nominations, Trump and Clinton mentions obviously spiked, but again, the Democrats were able to generate significantly more tweets. Thursday, July 28, saw 2.9 million tweets about the DNC; the previous Thursday, July 21, had 1.8 million tweets mentioning the RNC.

Both conventions focused heavily on the other party’s nominee as a major selling point for their own candidate. We cannot elect an unpredictable xenophobic populist, say the Democrats. The Republicans contend we cannot be led by a dishonest Washington insider who feels entitled to the office.

Social media was rife with mentions of the opposing party’s candidate. On the last day of the Republican convention, the terms “Hillary” and “ImWithHer” were among the top phrases associated with the RNC.

Likewise, “Trump” was among the most mentioned terms on day four of the DNC. Additionally, on day three of the DNC, when President Barack Obama, Vice President Biden and Michael Bloomberg spoke, Trump had almost as many Twitter mentions as “Hillary,” “Clinton” or “Obama.”

It was also clear that the Democrats have much stronger support from the establishment. We saw  little mention on Twitter of top Republican politicians during the RNC. Conversely, “Obama,” “Sanders,” “Bernie” and “Bill” had numerous mentions, both on the days they spoke, as well as throughout the convention.

Twitter reinforces the widening chasm between the parties, and suggests that many in either party will go far to keep the opposing party’s candidate out of office. There is, of course, a skew to Twitter numbers as older demographics are not as active online.

As we have seen in the past, younger voters can be the difference in a general election. Twitter will be an important medium when it comes to voter turnout. Both parties, and particularly the candidates, will be increasingly engaged online as we sprint toward November 8.