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"All of the candidates duking it out for the Republican nomination have a social media presence. But can the activity surrounding their accounts reveal anything about their chances to win elections?\nLast week, we asked if Twitter could predict the Iowa caucus. The results weren't perfect, but they did call for a much stronger showing by former Pennsylvania Senator Rick Santorum than the national polls projected. \nIndeed, after the closest Iowa caucus in American history, Santorum was defeated by an absolutely razor-thin margin.\nFor Tuesday's primary, we asked Globalpoint Research once again to analyze Twitter for us. Their weighted metric combines tweet volume and retweets with detailed sentiment analysis. Here's what they found:\n\n\nThese results give Mitt Romney a slightly higher lead than the latest polls, but they don't have any glaring difference with the most recent polling data from New Hampshire.\nIf Twitter is indeed predictive of the results, then Tuesday night should see a clear Romney victory, with a closely contested struggle for second place between Ron Paul, Jon Huntsman and Rick Santorum. There are no outrageous spikes in the data, but on Twitter, as in many polls, Jon Huntsman has been picking up steam. \nWill any of these predictions will hold true? Stay tuned \u2014 we'll find out Tuesday night.\nImage courtesy of iStockphoto, JamesBrey"^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://mashable.com/2012/01/10/twitter-primary/>