If you visit the Twitter account of David Weprin, the Democratic state assemblyman who is running to fill the Congressional seat of disgraced former Rep. Anthony Wiener, you might be surprised — at first — to think that he’s already declared victory. That’s because one of his most recent tweets actually reads: “Thank you everyone who worked, volunteered and supported the effort that culminated in the good results last night. I am most appreciative.”
Bizarrely, though, that tweet is from Weprin’s last election victory, in February of 2010. He hasn’t had a word to share on Twitter since that night. Say what?
It’s just one more sign that Weprin is running a lousy, and probably losing, campaign. His website doesn’t even point to his Twitter account, and while he is using tools like Facebook, his follower count there suggests that overall enthusiasm for his candidacy is lagging that of Republican newcomer Bob Turner. On Facebook, Weprin has 3,781 likes compared to Turner’s 5,462. Of those, about 1,400 of Weprin’s fans are in New York City, compared to just 600 for Turner, a sign of how much Turner’s bid has turned into yet another national rallying point for Republican activists. Recent polls show Turner slightly ahead, even though the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee has dumped more than half of million dollars into the race. (Turner lost to Wiener in 2010 by a 3-2 margin, by the way.)
A closer look at the way each candidate is using Facebook and the kind of response they’re getting surfaces more evidence that Turner is tapped into a vein of grassroots enthusiasm for his candidacy that is much bigger than Weprin. Turner’s last twenty updates to Facebook have generated 719 likes, more than three times the 220 tallied by Weprin. Turner’s campaign is also using Facebook with much greater intensity than Weprin–those twenty updates have all appeared since September 4th, while you have to scroll back to August 22nd to find the latest twenty updates by Weprin. That’s not as bad as his essentially inactive Twitter account, but it’s a difference of degree not kind.
The outcome of this race may be seen as one more bellwether on President Obama, though Weprin’s weakness is perhaps best read as a sign of the declining skills of the Queens Democratic machine, which appears to have misread the local currents. It may also be due to the desire or decision of the same machine to nominate someone who wouldn’t fight the likelihood that this district will be eliminated in the upcoming redistricting wars. In case you’re counting, Weprin has the endorsement of the New York Times; Turner has the Daily News and the New York Post.
September 12, 2011