Am I Big Enough for Trending Topics? The Impact of Party Size on the Twitter Performance of Gubernatorial Candidates

This article focuses on how different characteristics of Brazilian political parties impact the performance of Twitter (X) profiles belonging to the country’s various gubernatorial candidates during the 2022 election campaign. The platform was chosen because of data availability and for its relevance in setting political agendas and discussions. More specifically, two aspects of Twitter interaction were taken into consideration when correlating the metrics generated by these candidates’ accounts with their respective party sizes: engagement (likes, retweets, number of followers, etc.) levels, and the strategies employed when using Twitter mentions to cement personal and party alignments. The study discovered that party size is not a key aspect to explain online engagement. On the other hand, the candidates’ number of followers and the parties’ financial investments in that candidate’s campaign are relevant. Furthermore, the analysis shows that candidates tended to shift their Twitter mentioning strategy from the regional electoral dispute to the presidential race as their party size grew.