|
 On Twitter, the top influencer, or person who received the most
engagement on their #NeverTrump tweets, was Trump rival Marco Rubio,
according to online research firm Hashtagify.me.
The senator from Florida and real estate billionaire Trump are
engaged in an increasingly personal battle of insults on social
media before voters in more than a dozen states select their party's
nominee to run for the White House in November.
Rubio began using the tag on Friday, tweeting: "Donald Trump is a
con artist - and he cannot be our nominee. #NeverTrump." The tweet
received more than 8,000 "likes" and 5,100 retweets.
He repeated the tag in three more tweets over the weekend, with each
one getting several thousand likes or retweets.
A spokeswoman for the Trump campaign did not immediately return
calls for comment.
Another major influencer on the tag was conservative commentator
Glenn Beck (@glennbeck), even though he has used it just once, on
Sunday. Beck supports U.S. Senator Ted Cruz of Texas in the
campaign.
Still, Beck's post - "Praying for this great country. Praying for a
true constitutionalist! God bless (an emblem for the American flag).
#NeverTrump #CruzCrew" - proved influential, getting retweeted
nearly 1,000 times and liked nearly 2,000 times.
Traffic on the hashtag was dominated by users who identify as
conservative or Republican, most expressing vexation with the
front-runner.
Many tweets focused on Trump's CNN interview on Sunday, when he
declined to repudiate an endorsement from former Ku Klux Klan leader
David Duke. Trump later said he did not hear the question properly
because of a defective ear piece.
[to top of second column] |
Whitney Westerfield (@KyWhitney), a Republican state senator from
Kentucky, tweeted on Monday, "Wow. Trump blaming his failure to
repudiate the hatred & extremism of the KKK on a #BadEarpiece.
#NeverTrump."
"No, the white supremacist/David Duke/KKK question isn't hard.
Reject their support & denounce their hate. Again & again & again.
#nevertrump," said Stephen Hayes (@stephenhayes), a writer for the
Weekly Standard, a weekly conservative magazine.
Trump supporters have countered with their own hashtag:
#AlwaysTrump.
"We must continue to fight on social media, the Peoples Revolution,
the strongest tool right now! #TRUMP2016 #AlwaysTrump," wrote Trump
supporter Linda Alexander (@noopdoggy).
Still, the #NeverTrump hashtag was winning the trending battle,
seeing roughly twice the traffic as #AlwaysTrump on Monday,
according to social media analytics firm Zoomph.
(Reporting by Gina Cherelus; Editing by Dan Burns and Grant McCool)
[© 2016 Thomson Reuters. All rights
reserved.]
Copyright 2016 Reuters. All rights reserved. This material may not be published,
broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
 |
