--- title: 2016 Election: What Twitter Says Back to the Candidates description: An exclusive look at the unsolicited advice presidential contenders receive canonical: https://time.com/4131766/hillary-clinton-bernie-sanders-ben-carson-twitter-candidates/ author: Chris Wilson article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2015-12-02T17:13:20.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-03-30T11:55:48.225Z article:section: Politics og:title: What Twitter Has to Say Back to the Candidates og:description: An exclusive look at the unsolicited advice presidential contenders receive og:url: https://time.com/4131766/hillary-clinton-bernie-sanders-ben-carson-twitter-candidates/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: TIME og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: What Twitter Has to Say Back to the Candidates twitter:description: An exclusive look at the unsolicited advice presidential contenders receive twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production --- # What Twitter Has to Say Back to the Candidates by [Chris Wilson](https://time.com/author/chris-wilson/) and [Pratheek Rebala](https://time.com/author/pratheek-rebala/) Dec 2, 2015 5:13 PM UTC by [Chris Wilson](https://time.com/author/chris-wilson/) and [Pratheek Rebala](https://time.com/author/pratheek-rebala/) Dec 2, 2015 5:13 PM UTC Presidential candidates receive a steady stream of unsolicited advice, praise and criticism on Twitter. A TIME analysis of nearly six months of tweets directed at one candidate or another has found that what people have to say to the candidates rarely aligns with what the candidates want to discuss. The following charts show the top 10 words and phrases that are most unique to each candidate. **Methodology** This study examined all tweets that began with one candidate’s Twitter handle, meaning it is considered to be directed specifically to that candidate. Only candidates who received at least 5,000 messages were considered. Donald Trump was not an announced candidate at the time this study began. To determine phrases that were unique to candidates, we used a common methodology known as “[term frequency-inverse document frequency](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tf%E2%80%93idf)” that measures how much more likely a term is to show up in messages to one candidate versus all the candidates. ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/4131766/hillary-clinton-bernie-sanders-ben-carson-twitter-candidates/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/4131766/hillary-clinton-bernie-sanders-ben-carson-twitter-candidates/"},"headline":"What Twitter Has to Say Back to the Candidates","datePublished":"2015-12-02T17:13:20.000Z","dateModified":"2026-03-30T11:55:48.225Z","description":"An exclusive look at the unsolicited advice presidential contenders receive","url":"https://time.com/4131766/hillary-clinton-bernie-sanders-ben-carson-twitter-candidates/","keywords":["2016 Election","Hillary Clinton","2016 Election topic","twitter","Bill Clinton"],"thumbnailUrl":"","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Chris Wilson","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/chris-wilson/"},{"@type":"Person","name":"Pratheek Rebala","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/pratheek-rebala/"}],"articleSection":"Politics","image":[],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/politics/","name":"Politics"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"/tag/2016-election/","name":"2016 Election"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/4131766/hillary-clinton-bernie-sanders-ben-carson-twitter-candidates/","name":"What Twitter Has to Say Back to the Candidates"}}]}] ```