This Is What 2020 Democrats Care About Most, According to Their Tweets

When 20 of the two dozen Democratic presidential hopefuls take the stage in the campaign’s first major debate, it’ll cap months—in some cases years—of efforts to stand out on the major issues that will define the 2020 election.

For most of the candidates, social media has been the preferred platform for announcing policy proposals and clarifying positions. Since the beginning of 2019, candidates who qualified for the first debate sent about 24,000 tweets—and about half of them mentioned at least one major campaign issue, according to a Bloomberg analysis of their Twitter posts. In total, issues were mentioned in candidate tweets 16,000 times. Jobs, the environment and social issues—including women’s rights, LGBTQ rights and race—have been the issues most discussed in their tweets—making up a combined 37% of topics mentioned.

Some hot-button issues aren’t yet trending in the Democratic field. Infrastructure has barely registered. On average the candidates have mentioned it just eight times in tweets this year, and have tweeted about trade wars and tariffs—defining issues for Trump—even less.

But some candidates have specific focuses that differentiate them from the rest of the contenders. Washington Governor Jay Inslee has made climate change the focal point of his campaign and talks more about the issue on Twitter than any other candidate. Hawaii Representative Tulsi Gabbard is the candidate who has devoted the largest share of tweets to discuss the military and national defense. Some candidates have employed a stream of consistent Twitter posts to define where they stand on the issues. A couple, relatively speaking, barely tweet at all.

Measuring what candidates say on Twitter is a useful exercise in understanding the issues they’re most focused on. But the ways they test their messaging and spread their ideas obviously extends far beyond 280-character posts. While most campaigns are active on several social media platforms, Bloomberg’s analysis focuses only on issues mentioned on Twitter. Measuring messaging on only one social media platform provides a consistent baseline and avoids counting similar or identical messages posted in succession across multiple candidate social media accounts.

And as the preferred megaphone of President Donald Trump, measuring how each Democratic candidate uses Twitter could preface how the 2020 campaign unfolds for whoever emerges as the nominee. These are the issues each candidate has tweeted about so far in their campaign for the presidency:

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