Bernie Sanders sees massive boost in online support over one week as presidential campaign revs up
WASHINGTON — Sanders is berning up the internet.
Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders has seen an explosion in support online as he revs up his campaign for president, and is using the increased attention to build a volunteer army he hopes can match Hillary Clinton's more professionalized organization.
Facebook data obtained by the Daily News shows that more than
twice as many people were talking about Sanders last week on the social media platform than in the week before, and that the overall conversation about him nearly tripled in the same time, from 5.5 million unique interactions the week ending Aug. 5 to 14.4 million in the week ending Aug. 12.
That final figure comes close to the 15.3 million unique interactions (likes, posts comments and shares) Clinton got in the same period, the latest sign of growing buzz around the Vermont lefty — and the work of a solid digital operation.
"They're doing a fantastic job on the digital side, no question," said Jason Rosenbaum, the technology director of Action Network, a group that works with a number of liberal and labor groups that isn't affiliated with any presidential campaign.
Google trends also shows a sharp uptick in interest in Sanders over the last few weeks.
More people have been searching about Sanders than Clinton since mid-June, partly because he's more of an unknown so more are looking for basic information. But searches of his name spiked starting last Saturday, during a string of huge rallies he held on the West Coast that drew from 8,000 to 28,000 people, and a Black Lives Matter protest that interrupted his Seattle event. He even overtook Donald Trump in total Google searches last Monday.
Sanders digital director Kenneth Pennington said they're doing all they can to turn that online interest into the hard currency of modern campaigning, volunteers and money.
"There's this incredible amount of enthusiasm around the country and on the internet surrounding Bernie's message… and what we're focusing on digitally is building a serious campaign that can convert that energy into votes," he told the Daily News.
Early returns look promising. Sanders' campaign held an organizing day on July 29, planned online, that yielded 105,000 RVSPs for 3,500 in-person organizing meetings in all 50 states.
Pennington said tens of thousands of people signed up to volunteer, and they're now pushing those people to join their "all-volunteer army" and identify the best volunteers to fill roles on the campaign that Clinton is filling with paid staff.
"Part of the pyramid is at the very base level people taking those easy actions, spreading the word on social media. And graduating up from there. ... We have more than 120,000 very active volunteers who have taken action that they don't want to just take the easy social media action, they've said they want to host, attend or help coordinate volunteers to do phone calls, canvassing, put up yard signs," he said.
On the money front, Sanders raised more than $15 million in the first three months of his campaign ending in June, roughly a third of what Clinton raised but much of it from small online donations.
Sanders' campaign wouldn't give updated fundraising figures, but said the average donation size has actually decreased to around $31 overall, a sign that small donors continue to fuel his operation.
Sanders, a curmudgeonly, rumpled 73 year old, doesn't seem a natural face for the tech generation. But Pennington said that his boss has long seen the potential of reaching out to voters online. His Reddit "ask me anythings" starting three years ago quickly became popular, and Pennington said there's a community of 75,000 Redditors backing Sanders they're now tapping for campaign operations.
Sanders routinely complains about the media's obsession over gossip and horse-race politics over policy, and Pennington says he sees online outlets as a means to communicate directly to voters about what he wants to talk about.
"He sees social media as a way to talk about the issues the traditional media may not be inclined to cover," he said.
Sanders' efforts come in a year where most campaigns have a seamless connection between online and physical actions, as the tech side of political campaigns has continued to advance and voters and activists have become more tech-savvy themselves.
A strong online organization is now a necessity, not a luxury, and Clinton's campaign also has a talented, savvy tech team doing lots of work to engage voters online. Both campaigns have alumni of President Obama's vaunted digital team working for them.
It's hard to parse out how much of Sanders online boomlet has to do with his appeal, and how much is being driven by his digital team. But it's likely the candidate's own appeal is doing more for the campaign than anything well-placed and clever digital ads could achieve.
"You can't make something out of nothing but talented people are able to harness that excitement in an authentic way. And one of Bernie's big appeals is that he's authentic," said Rosenbaum. "That's a real key part of online organizing."
