Conclusion
Joe Biden has yet to show significant traction on social media according to ZettaCap’s Social Media Influence (SMI). In fact, his position has weakened from June’s debate. Biden is going into the second round of debates in late July with low momentum and his campaign is in danger of collapsing over the coming months unless he can create a major turnaround.
Biden’s SMI Shows Continued Weakness
In contrast to Biden’s leading position in polls and alternating top position in betting markets, SMI shows Biden as struggling. Currently, he is in a paltry 6th place and fading.
Exhibit 1: Social Media Influence (SMI) of Leading Democratic Candidates
Source: ZettaCap
Given the state of the campaign, between the first and second round of debates, SMI is still somewhat volatile. However, even under these conditions, Biden’s SMI remains stuck in a seemingly second-tier position. Further, the Democratic SMI leaders have begun to pull away.
Assuming Biden’s SMI remains near current levels, his traditional metrics will most likely deteriorate over the coming months.
Previous Forecasts for Biden
Since the beginning of the 2020 election cycle, before Biden announced, ZettaCap played down the likelihood of Joe Biden winning the Democratic nomination. In January, ZettaCap stated that Biden’s prospects would “likely flame out” and in May stated that Biden is expected “to be the largest Democratic disappointment”.
These forecasts are fully based on SMI which is a quantitative method using only social media data as input. As such, ZettaCap appears to be the first and perhaps still only quantitative system to forecast Biden’s electoral demise.
We expect his position to deteriorate over the coming months as traditional metrics such as polls and betting markets catch up with SMI.
Biggest Call of 2020 Election so Far?
Out-of-consensus calls are normally, at least in politics, based on positive or affirmative forecasts. In other words, candidate X will make a stunning upset victory. SMI made such forecasts in the 2016 US Election (early Trump victory forecast), in the 2017 French Election (early Macron victory forecast), and in the 2018 Brazil Election (early Bolsonaro victory forecast).
Perhaps the most significant 2020 US Election forecast will be the fall of Biden. Interestingly, this forecast is negative or one focused on which candidate will not perform well. It lays in contrast to other out-of-consensus calls by ZettaCap which were mostly positive or affirmative forecasts. It is striking as Biden, according to traditional metrics such as polls, has been considered the front-runner by the consensus.
On January 22nd, when ZettaCap published “SMI of Democratic 2020 Field” which showed Biden’s poor prospects, Biden was actually in first place in polls according to Real Clear Politics with a lead of 10 percentage points.
On May 10th, when ZettaCap published “Joe Biden: Weaker than Polls Imply”, Biden had an astounding 27 percentage point poll lead according to Real Clear Politics over the second place Sanders.
Traditional metrics, since the beginning of the 2020 election cycle have shown Biden to be not only a strong candidate but in most cases, the stand-out front-runner. Even today, polls show him to have a 14 percentage point lead.
SMI, in contrast, has highlighted his mediocre status. According to ZettaCap’s social media methodology, Biden has yet to show indications that he is or could even breakout to become the front-runner.
Given Biden’s continued strong poll figures, SMI’s indication of his weakness and forecast of his eventual demise should be viewed as one of the most significant quantitative-based negative forecasts of the 2020 cycle.
The coming Democratic debate on July 31st should prove to be an important moment for Biden. If his SMI does not make a significant improvement post-debate, the Democratic race will likely be thrown into chaos as we would expect his traditional metrics to deteriorate. Assuming this is the case, many of the elements of the traditional or centrist Democrats will fade along with Biden. The next few months will certainly be important to follow.