Earlier in this election cycle, we looked at South Carolina’s three candidates for governor and their presences on Twitter. Now, let’s take a look at the three candidates for the state’s seat in the Senate: Tim Scott (R), Krystle Matthews (D), and Jesse Harper (I).
Tim Scott – Republican – Incumbent
Scott is the incumbent senator for the state of South Carolina, and is running for re-election on Nov. 8. Two other Republican candidates, Casey O’Grady and Timothy Swain, withdrew from the race prior to the primary election, allowing Scott to move ahead unchallenged within his own party. Scott’s name has been mentioned 10.6K+ times in the United States since the start of October. On Twitter, he was mentioned 606 times by users who identify their locations as within South Carolina. Nearly 70% of these mentions were negatively coded.
Many of the top themes of discussion around Scott discuss his connections to other political figures, several of them being polarizing Republicans like incumbent governor Henry McMaster, fellow South Carolina senator Lindsey Graham (who is not up for re-election this cycle), and Herschel Walker. Within the most recent content, many users discuss how Scott’s politics are money-driven and fail to represent other South Carolinians of color in particular. In fact, most mentions of Scott’s name are opposed to him and his policies, advocating for his opponent Krystle Matthews and pointing out how poorly Scott has addressed local issues like infrastructure and crime rates.
$35 million from a single donor for one candidate. Dang y’all. https://t.co/JMXukw6U2o
— Brady Quirk-Garvan (@bradyqg) October 21, 2022
Scott’s Twitter handle is @SenatorTimScott, and has been mentioned 14.1K+ times in the United States since the start of October; a whopping 85% of mentions are negative – which comes as no surprise after analyzing the themes of Tweets in-state that mention his name. Scott has 679K followers on the platform and has posted 11.4K times since joining in Nov. 2010. Sean Hannity, Dr. Oz, and and FOX News contributor Jason Chaffetz are among the top prolific users engaging with his Twitter account this month.
Krystle Matthews – Democrat
Matthews earned the Democratic nomination after beating out opponents Angela Geter and Catherine Fleming Bruce in the primaries. All three initial candidates are women of color, an exciting development for the state.
Each candidate’s supporters seem to take over mentions of their opponent’s name – just as many of Matthews’ advocates took over mentions of Scott’s name with pro-Matthews content, many of the top and recent posts on Twitter under Matthews’ name are bashing her and advocating for Scott. Lots of this content alleges that Matthews is a foul-mouthed and immature racist rather than focusing on her policies or what benefits her opponents may offer that she doesn’t.
Matthews has only been mentioned 562 times in the United States since the start of October, and 96.4% of these mentions are negative – many similar to the attacks mentioned above. There is a major uptick in mentions just yesterday, Nov. 1, with the following Tweet being shared widely by her supporters:
https://twitter.com/veteran91910/status/1587444102790103040?s=20&t=wOvUdUNItbwg7qGBqYjm8A
Matthews used to be able be found on Twitter at @kmforsenate, but another reason her name was trending so much on Nov. 1 was that she evidently deleted her account yesterday as well. With so much vitriol, it’s understandable that she made this decision, yet from a public relations and marketing standpoint it seems an interesting move especially as the election nears. Her account’s disappearance was spotted by a pundit on the conservative platform Gettr, which describes itself as “a brand new social media platform founded on the principles of free speech, independent thought and rejecting political censorship and ‘cancel culture’.”
https://twitter.com/Ellabellabadd/status/1587494574246723585?s=20&t=eUcWHudXxQQBLgv3PIVG8Q
Jesse Harper – Independent American Party
Harper is a write-in independent candidate listed as a member of the Independent American Party. Larry Adams Jr. was another independent candidate who withdrew from the race, leaving Harper as the only challenger to the bipartisan system. However, it looks like Harper will not be able to make much of an impact on the election. Their name has only been mentioned 24 times in the United States since the start of October, and most of those are not about the same Jesse Harper in question. In fact, a majority of them are about a man named Jesse Harper who recently opened a recreational marijuana business in Vermont.
In trying to narrow down the content down to our Jesse Harper, there is only one Tweet about Harper and South Carolina, posted on Sept. 8 – before Adams left the race.
It's a shame @SCMisesCaucus didn't run a Libertarian against @VoteTimScott this year. He is not worth voting for.@SCGOP uses Open Primary to protect Scott from a primary. So is he really even a Republican?
SC should vote Jesse Harper or Larry Adams Jr for #SCSen instead. https://t.co/209HhdeFz4 pic.twitter.com/2kQip6KnF9
— Helsingor (@Helsingor) September 8, 2022
Harper does not appear to have a Twitter profile and indeed it is difficult to even find via Google, with their name returning results for an EMT, an inmate, and a former football player who died in 1961.
It appears the race for the second Senate seat here in South Carolina will come down to Scott and Matthews, and based on the combative dialogue online it looks like it will prove to be a contentious battle indeed.
Author: Kayleigh Jackson
