Turnquest, Murphy Dominate Buzz in Florida’s 18th Congressional District

In 2012, democrat Patrick Murphy narrowly defeated Allen West by less than 2500 votes to take Florida’s 18th congressional district, and he’s looking to repeat his victory this year in the mid-term elections.  But the closeness of the vote has encouraged a large pool of republican contenders, each who feel that without West’s baggage they could switch the district from D to R.

An early look at the race shows us that, on Twitter at least, all the buzz is around two candidates: the incumbent Murphy and the challenger Calvin Turnquest:

Twitter mentions in FL-18

Twitter mentions in FL-18 – Click to Enlarge

The other GOP contenders have plenty of time to ramp up their social media presence, but it is my observations that Mr. Turnquest has a natural fluency with social media that may be hard for them to surpass.  Given how close the last election was, it would do the GOP good to pick a candidate who can reach voters in all channels, and until the others demonstrate a core competency in Social Media, on just the mechanics of politics Mr. Turnquest looks like an early leader.