This week Rick Santorum is meeting with conservative leaders in hopes that they can convince Newt Gingrich to drop out of the race for the Republican presidential nominee. But that message is already being sent to the former speaker of the House by his Facebook fans.
Or should we say, former Facebook fans.
Since March 25, Gingrich has only had one day where he gained likes on Facebook, even though he remains an active user. The exodus shows perhaps that voters and Facebook users are realizing that Gingrich has no shot at becoming president and that his theory of a brokered Tampa convention is increasingly unrealistic.
Gingrich gained just three fans on March 24 and lost 25 likes the following day, according to SocialBakers.com. He added 18 new followers on March 27, but that wasn’t enough to make up for the previous day’s losses.
On April 3, Gingrich didn’t just lose at the primaries in Wisconsin, Maryland, and the District of Columbia. He lost more than 100 likes on Facebook.
Although most people posting on Gingrich’s page are in support of the former speaker, some have called for him to step aside and others have offered theories about when he would.
“The Newt Gingrich campaign is out of money, and is now 100k in debt. If history tells us anything, Newt loves his money and will likely not stick around if he has to pay for this out of his own pocket,” wrote the Facebook group “We survived Bush. You will survive Obama.”
Meanwhile, Romney has seen more steady growth. On that same Tuesday, the former Massachusetts governor gained more than 2,600 new followers. Romney’s Facebook page, as has his campaign, is slowly moving into general election mode. His recent posts have not mentioned any of the other Republican possibilities—only President Barack Obama.
Photo via Gage Skidmore
