Facebook Data Shows Clinton and Sanders Most Discussed

The data comes from Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina.

Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders lead the pack of presidential candidates in early primary and caucus states — at least in terms of Facebook likes and interactions.

Discussion on the social network in Iowa, the first caucus state, and in South Carolina and New Hampshire -- early primary states -- over the last month has focused mostly on the two Democrats, according to data provided by Facebook.

The data runs from May 13 to June 13, and ends before Donald Trump entered the race. Facebook's data includes all mentions and doesn't discern between negative and positive mentions. 

In all three states, Hillary Clinton dominated interactions, which are composed of likes, shares, posts, and comments about the candidate. For example, 66,000 unique users in Iowa had 289,000 interactions about the former secretary of state.

Clinton came out as the clear frontrunner in South Carolina, and had 104,000 users making 460,000 interactions about her. The next closest candidate in the state was U.S. Sen. Rand Paul, who garnered 132,000 interactions from 34,000 users. 

In Iowa and New Hampshire, U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vermont) paced closely with Clinton.

In New Hampshire -- a state that abuts Sanders' Vermont -- he enjoyed 123,000 discussions among 23,000 unique users compared with Clinton's 145,000 interactions among 32,000 unique users.

Rounding out the 18 candidates presented in the data were former New York Gov. George Pataki, a Republican, and former Maryland Gov. Martin O'Malley, a Democrat. Pataki had only had roughly 2,000 interactions across all three states, while O'Malley did slightly better, getting 5,000 interactions in New Hampshire and South Carolina and 3,000 interactions in Iowa.  

Editor's note: This post has been updated to correct the number of users who interacted with Hillary Clinton on Facebook.

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