South Carolina votes; Newt Gingrich’s win fuels emotional tweets

Newt Gingrich’s win in South Carolina has fueled a sixfold increase in tweets about the remaining four GOP president hopefuls, according to an analysis by San Francisco-based Kanjoya.

Kanjoya, which uses a computer algorithm to assess emotion on Twitter about the candidates, said the sharp uptick in volume began when the polls closed at 4 p.m. Pacific time.

From the 30 tweets per minute the company was analyzing for each candidate earlier in the day, the number rose to 180 per minute.

MOOD METER: Track social sentiment around candidates

And the tone changed as well. Kanjoya’s analysis found an increase in “anger” around Gingrich, some of it directed at the media. For example, one person tweeted: “And the networks are calling it for Gingrich. They can’t be wrong, right?”

More than 183,000 tweets about Gingrich were analyzed today by Kanjoya.

Kanjoya also found “joy” trending upwards for Gingrich, as indicated by tweets with terms such as “leads,” “polls,” “voters,” and “Romney.”

Tweets about Mitt Romney, who until recent days was believed to be the front-runner, increased in “surprise,” according to Kanjoya. @MikeZaccardi tweeted: “wow. Now that totally re-opens the race. I can’t believe how poorly Romney has done recently. Florida shall b interesting.”

More than 100,000 tweets about Romney were analyzed.

Joy for Romney was also on the rise, but many of the tweets, Kanjoya engineers found, were celebratory Gingrich tweets that mention his victory over Romney.

For Rick Santorum, “sadness” was on the rise in the more than 21,000 tweets about him today analyzed so far by the company. “I like him but he won’t be President,” tweeted @ProducerSusan.

All day, as Kanjoya tracked “joy” around Gingrich, they found it centered around the ramifications of a potential victory in South Carolina. The former speaker of the House surged in popularity in recent days even as his second wife, Marianne Gingrich, alleged in an interview that he had asked her for an open marriage.

Kumar Garapaty, a Kanjoya project manager, said the firm’s analysis found “people on Twitter think it’ll make for good theater.”

Garapaty cited a few examples: “RT @tomgreenlive: Newt Gingrich can’t beat Obama. But it will be fun to watch the debates. At least we will get some good TV out of this.”

“RT @emokidsloveme: I find it absolutely fascinating that Newt Gingrich believes he can beat Barack Obama. Maybe he’s just joking.”

Ron Paul was the subject of nearly 50,000 tweets culled by Kanjoya’s computer algorithm. Company engineers said they consistently are able to extract more emotion from tweets that reference the Texas congressman, who has been popular among young people. About 45% of tweets about Paul are found to contain emotion, compared to about 40% for the other candidates.

Among the top terms found by Kanjoya in tweets about Paul? “Medical marijuana,” “@youtube”, and “liberty.”

Moritz Sudhof, a Kanjoya engineer, said their analysis found that “bomb” -- as in “money bomb,” a reference to a big fundraising boost -- and “president” were among the top terms in posts associated with Paul.

“Ron Paul’s supporters also love to call Ron Paul ‘President Paul.’ What this shows us is that the chatter about Ron Paul on Twitter is much more supporter-driven and much less organic,” Sudhof said.

Read more about Kanjoya’s algorithm: What sentiment analysis can and cannot tell us about the GOP race.