I decided to make things interesting (and infinitely harder for myself) by expanding the scope of endorsements. I was just using the 538 Endorsement Tracker, but after Elon Musk endorsed Andrew Yang the other day, I thought that maybe I should include more.
My thought is that someone like Musk is more influential than some representative from an unknown district in South Dakota (all districts in South Dakota are unknown, four people live in SD). I mean, some of the candidates are having to navigate the constant feuds between celebrities in order to pick up that coveted Taylor Swift endorsement (I am not even kidding, Kamala Harris had a meeting with Katy Perry, Demi Lovato, and Ariana Grande at Scooter Braun’s house and Swift fans flipped out saying they would not support Harris if she sided with Braun).
Fortunately, Wikipedia has a fairly updated list of endorsements that includes celebrities (and not just major celebs, but some pretty minor folks). I decided to make some cutoffs. A major endorsement has to be someone who has 500K+ Twitter followers (or if they are not on Twitter, they need to be actively campaigning/donating huge amounts of money to a candidate). In order to hit the minor endorsement, they need 100K+ Twitter followers OR if they are not at that number, then they need to be more active. For example: if an aging actor has 75,000 Twitter followers, but is Tweeting constantly about a candidate, then that is probably worth more than a celeb who has 200,000 followers, but retweeted something from a candidate. Does that make sense? Basically, I am the arbiter of endorsements. Also, I definitely need help. If anyone sees an endorsement, post it in the Facebook group OR send it to me.
Here are some of the more interesting endorsements I found:
GRRM: The creator of Game of Thrones endorsed Joe Biden. I do not know why I find that to be so weird. I guess Arya will be defending some private insurance folks in the next book…
Joe Rogan & Ron Paul are supporting Tulsi Gabbard. I can totally see her switching to the Libertarian Party after she withdraws from the race.
Bernie has some serious A-List talent, but Kamala has Mark Hamill and you cannot top Luke Skywalker. Also, Steve Bullock has The Dude, so that should count for something.
We also had a few candidates drop out! Yay for that. Mike Gravel and John Hickenlooper are out. Gravel has decided to endorse two candidates: Bernie and Tulsi.
So how did this change the standings? Well it shifted things around in big ways…we now have a new leader!
As I said before, do not panic if you are not doing well. Remember, the first couple primaries/caucuses will bring some more points into the fray. I also think if someone beats Biden in Iowa that Trump will start mentioning that person more on Twitter. At the moment, he only mentions Sleepy Joe and on occasion he will mention someone else.
I decided to give Biden a knock for last week on all of his gaffs. I did not separate them all, just lumped them as one bad week. I think we need more screw ups! Please, find them and send them to me.
Hi there! I am a government teacher, and randomly stumbled across your blog (I’ve really enjoyed what I’ve read, though!), and I really want to try this with my students. Could you possibly lend me some insight into how you’re keeping score, what your spreadsheet looks like, or anything else I could use? This is a fantastic idea, and I wish there was an app for this, but I can’t find anything like it.
Thanks for your consideration!
Ron, shoot me an email and I will send ya my spreadsheet and give you some pointers