On trends

It's been awhile since I've updated the Facebook support trends in the Saskatchewan NDP leadership race, largely since Jason had taken on the task for awhile at least in tracking the two top numbers. But now that he's just starting an extended series of posts headed in another direction on the race, let's take a look at where the candidates now stand compared to where they were a month ago and in Jason's last update:

Dwain Lingenfelter - 665 fans (639 as of April 25; 660 as of May 5)
Ryan Meili - 487 supporters (404 as of April 25; 434 as of May 5)
Yens Pedersen Campaign - 242 members (227 as of April 25)
Deb Higgins for Sask NDP Leader - 94 members (96 as of April 25)

It's worth noting that within the one-month time period, there have been a couple of individual trends which may not be obvious from the above. For a time, Yens Pedersen's numbers had actually dropped into the low 220s, but he's built some momentum back up over the last couple of weeks. In contrast, Dwain Lingenfelter's total has ranged up to 667 before dropping slightly over the last week.

Aside from already-announced endorsements, there don't seem to be too many household names among the new supporters. About the most significant may be the appearance of federal NDP strategist Brian Topp among Lingenfelter's fans, representing another well-known link back to the Romanow years; and prominent union lawyer Larry Kowalchuk in Meili's supporter list, which could signal a bridge between Meili and organized labour which hasn't otherwise been apparent.

As always, the Facebook indicators need to be taken with a heavy grain of salt. But it's interesting to note that the two veteran politicians who would seem to have had more left to learn about social networking have seen their results flatline throughout May, while Meili and Pedersen have both kept building up their list of supporters. And particularly with Meili narrowing the gap on Lingenfelter, it's worth wondering to what extent the Facebook numbers might reflect the state of the race in general.