Twitter Poll: GOP Primary -- Week Ending 11/19/2011

Newt's ascension is complete:

But there is no clear front runner:

Newt and Cain have been trading the lead all week:

Which has been no help to Romney. If any thing, the rise of Newt and fall of Cain have merely reset the race to it's early -- and highly confused -- state.

One thing's clear, Ron Paul's still off in his own little world -- and a surprising number of conservatives aren't talking about any of the candidates.

Twitter Poll: GOP Primary -- Week Ending 11/12/2011

The "bubble" generated by the Cain scandal seems to have burst.

But his losses may be only "negative mentions" so we'll have to wait and see whether he suffers a net loss of support since the beginning of the allegations. He seems to have gained ground over the course of the last two days.

Meanwhile, Gingrich has continued his rise into the leaders' pack:

The shape of the mention space has changed significantly. I have to admit that it may take me a few weeks to be satisfied that I know how to interpret it.

My two cents today:

1. For the first time, most political discussion centers on the GOP primary;
2. The GOP electorate is a confused, uncommitted mess;
3. Newt Gingrich is benefiting greatly from the party's confusion;
4. Ron Paul and Rick Santorum are still off in their own little world;

See y'all next Sunday.

Twitter Poll: GOP Primary -- Week Ending 11/5/2011

Everyone was talking about Cain this week:

Meanwhile, Newt continued his climb into the lead pack:

And Perry's slow decline continued all week:

The mention space is complicated by the harassment scandal dogging Cain. The scandal may prove to be a net positive in the long run (in the primaries), but I have no doubt that significant portions of Cain mentions this week were "negative" mentions. (I also suspect that negative mentions may not have been reliably distinguishable from positive mentions by off-the-shelf sentiment analysis.)

Paradoxically, the Cain story has been so dominant in the past week that the mention space visualization may tell us more about the positioning of the candidates than usual.

Rick Santorum, like Ron Paul, is isolated from mainstream networks. Newt Gingrich, on the other hand,  is well positioned to see a surge of support in the weeks or months to come. Rick Perry has faded into the background with Michele Bachmann. Romney sits behind Gingrich and Cain, steady but uninspiring.