Rounds Leads on Facebook Likes; Bosworth Tops Daily Rate; Nelson Wins Fair Week

Last updated on 2013.09.03

With only nine months to go until the June primary, let's see how South Dakota's declared candidates for U.S. Senate stack up on a metric that means something to the average person on the street: How many people like them on Facebook? As of late Tuesday night...

1. Mike Rounds: 4,970
2. Rick Weiland: 2,301
3. Annette Bosworth: 1,960
4. Stace Nelson: 1,256
5. Larry Rhoden: 281

Now let's divide those Likes by the number days since each candidate's page appeared on Facebook:

1. Bosworth (July 16, 2013): 40.0
2. Weiland (May 8, 2013): 19.5
3. Rounds (October 19, 2012): 15.6
4. Rhoden (July 10, 2013): 5.1
5. Nelson (April 8, 2010): 1.0

Notice Nelson suffers on this metric for having been on Facebook with a candidate page the longest.

Finally, let's look at the little Like charts on each candidates Facebook page, which give day-by-day weekly totals. Here's how many new Likes Facebook counts for most of State Fair week, from August 26 to September 1:

1. Nelson: 143
2. Bosworth: 101
3. Rhoden: 9
4. Rounds: 9
5. Weiland: 5

Notice that those numbers track order of candidacy announcement, though the gap between Bosworth and Rhoden, who officially announced and created their candidate pages just six days apart in July, is stunning. Larry, the fact that Annette can beat you at anything other than writing prescriptions should make you sound red alert kick you web team into high gear.

And Rick. Rick! The kids are at college! Tell 'em to get their friends to Like and Share!