Jeb Bush Is Struggling To Be Liked On Facebook

BuzzFeed News has a partnership with Facebook for the 2016 election, and we get two sets of data: how often someone is mentioned (the number of interactions about that person in statuses and on pages) and how positively they are talked about (what the sentiment is in status posts — positive, negative, and neutral). We put them together in the graphic above.

The graphic is relative. For example, Bernie Sanders held a 53% positive sentiment this past week and is at the midpoint here.

But check out where Jeb Bush lands!

Last week, Bush was less talked about than Scott Walker and Rand Paul — and less positively. The sentiment in posts about Bush on Facebook was 41% positive, compared to 59% and 55% for Walker and Paul, respectively.

That lack of enthusiasm on Facebook matches up with something that donors and operatives are saying, as the New York Times reported on Saturday night: Bush isn't inevitable, despite the air of inevitability the proto-campaign projected earlier this year.

When you compare Bush with other candidates who have approximately the same level of interaction on Facebook, the trend line this year bears out — Bush is generally less positively talked about.