Hacker News Reader

If Facebook likes were votes Sanders would be trouncing Clinton in the polls and Trump would be the only person left running for the Republicans. However, people discussing politics on Facebook tends to be completely toxic and representative of the most enthusiastic, sometimes vitriolic, people around. It's very, very different than the layout of voters as a whole.

View on HN

I agree with your opinion of politics & Facebook, it's one of the reasons I ended up closing my Facebook account. But the Facebook likes on the Republican side are closer to the current delegate counts (as of April 6) than I would have expected. If you narrow down to Trump, Cruz, Rubio & Kasich:

Trump: 48% Delegates, 53% Republican Likes

Cruz: 32% Delegates, 28% Republican Likes

Rubio: 11% Delegates, 16% Republican Likes

Kasich: 9% Delegates, 3% Republican Likes

Though if you add Carson back in, it stops matching up. And certainly the Facebook Like counts don't match delegate counts on the Democrat side. But I thought it was odd how closely the Facebook figures were matching for the Republicans.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com