Who does the California State Legislature follow on Twitter?
From New York to North Carolina, we’ve explored some of the most-followed Twitter accounts by local elected officials. Now, we’re heading west, to California. Let’s take a look at who the California State Legislature is following on Twitter.
Twitter, despite its recent controversies, is still the most popular app for legislators and their constituents to interact online. For the 80 Assemblymembers and 40 Senators in the California State Legislature, there are 129 accounts (with some members having an official and a personal account), and we looked at who they’re following in the latest installment of our series analyzing the Twitter political ecosystem. We came up with some conclusions based on the Twitter data, but if you’re looking to take an even deeper dive yourself, you can access the full list of the top 500 most-followed Twitter accounts by CA legislators at the link above.
One note is that, due to uncertainty about Twitter’s API access, we collected this data in the spring, so it may not reflect the most recent statistics. However, we’ve observed in our research so far that follows are sticky, and we doubt that there is much difference.
Our Findings
Perhaps unsurprisingly, California’s Twitter data aligned pretty closely with the perception of the state as a nearly-unfailingly blue region. In fact, none of the top 140 most-followed Twitter accounts were Republican, with the first non-Democratic Twitter account being former independent California Asm. Chad Mayes at #80. An actual Republican politician doesn’t show up until #138 with State Sen. Brian Dahle from the 1st District. Looking at the actual composition of the California State Legislature, you’ll see this start to make sense: 32 of the 40 Senators are Democratic, along with 62 of the 80 Assemblymembers.
Additionally, Twitter accounts aligned with the Democratic Party or with close overlap (such as the AAPI Legislative Caucus and California State Senate Democratic Caucus) rank highly. This trend not only reflects the liberal politics that the state of California is well known for, but that elected officials tend to follow accounts that they might agree with in real life.
Most followed accounts by California state legislators. One note is that the data was collected while Anthony Rendon was still speaker.
Media follows
After Democratic legislators, the next most frequently-followed Twitter users were media outlets and reporters. Indeed, the third most followed Twitter account overall was the California politics account at the Sacramento Bee, followed closely by former LA Times reporter John Myers at #8 and the Capitol Morning report at #16. All three of the top accounts follow news in the Sacramento Capitol specifically, highlighting a specific focus on local reporters.
While social is often accused of leading to informational bubbles - and the tendency for elected officials to follow members of their own party suggests that this is true - it also offers a chance to push back on the increasing nationalization of political coverage in the news. We see in California, as in other states, that local or State House reporters are followed highly, showing the power of an open platform for letting people get access to the information they need.
How Legislata can help
While Twitter can definitely tell us more about what our elected officials are getting down to in Sacramento, it’s still not the best source of easily accessible, consolidated information about politics. Luckily, Legislata has features to address this.
Legislata helps you stay on top of the information that underpins your political world. With our platform, you can manage your own information, stay alerted with what’s happening in your networks, and get your message out - all in one convenient place. You can also request an invite to our California community that just launched here.
With LegislataPRO, you can also turn your inbox into a hub of productivity (and is an ideal solution for elected officials inundated by constituent communications). Sign up for a free account or schedule a demo to learn more.