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All of the candidates duking it out for the Republican nomination have a social media presence. But can the activity surrounding their accounts reveal anything about their chances to win elections?

Last week, we asked if Twitter could predict the Iowa caucus. The results weren’t perfect, but they did call for a much stronger showing by former Pennsylvania Senator Rick Santorum than the national polls projected.

Indeed, after the closest Iowa caucus in American history, Santorum was defeated by an absolutely razor-thin margin.

For Tuesday’s primary, we asked Globalpoint Research once again to analyze Twitter for us. Their weighted metric combines tweet volume and retweets with detailed sentiment analysis. Here’s what they found:

These results give Mitt Romney a slightly higher lead than the latest polls, but they don’t have any glaring difference with the most recent polling data from New Hampshire.

If Twitter is indeed predictive of the results, then Tuesday night should see a clear Romney victory, with a closely contested struggle for second place between Ron Paul, Jon Huntsman and Rick Santorum. There are no outrageous spikes in the data, but on Twitter, as in many polls, Jon Huntsman has been picking up steam.

Will any of these predictions will hold true? Stay tuned — we’ll find out Tuesday night.

Image courtesy of iStockphoto, JamesBrey

More About: 2012 presidential campaign, Facebook, New Hampshire republican primary, Twitter

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NBC and Facebook are teaming up to co-host a broadcast of the U.S. GOP presidential debate before the New Hampshire Republican primary next year.

NBC will air the debate as a special broadcast of Meet the Press, moderated by the show’s host David Gregory. At the same time, it will stream live on Facebook “to create an interactive experience.”

Starting Monday, users can start discussions and post questions for the debate at either the Meet the Press or US Politics Facebook pages. Some of the questions posted on the pages will be used in the debate.

As the longest running show on television, Meet the Press is no stranger to hosting political discussions. Facebook is a bit newer to the role, but its importance as a political platform was highlighted by President Barack Obama’s successful efforts to use Facebook and other social media to mobilize young voters in the 2008 election.

Since then, Facebook — and social media in general — has become so much of a political tool that it hosted a live discussion with the president earlier this year. The upcoming debate in New Hampshire won’t be the GOP’s first debate that involves social media. The candidates are also scheduled for a Twitter debate on July 20.

Facebook first played a role in debate coverage in the 2008 elections, when it worked with ABC to involve its users. In that partnership, Facebook users were able to participate in Debate Groups, view behind-the-scenes footage and view Facebook polls, but this is the first time that the debates will be live streamed on the platform.

“Voters expect to be able to learn about and interact with candidates on Facebook,” said Joel Kaplan, vice president of U.S. public policy at Facebook, in a statement.

More About: 2012 election, facebook, New Hampshire republican primary, obama, politics

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