Donald Trump speaks at a campaign rally in Tampa, Fla. For Trump, the fight for Florida begins and ends with mass appeal: signature rallies and direct social media contact with voters who believe he can "make America great again." (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert)
A wave of negative tweets, Facebook posts, YouTubes and other social media aimed at Hillary Rodham Clinton helped turned enough voters against the Democrat to switch close states like Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, and Florida for President-elect Trump, according to a new analysis.
Statistical evidence showed that the anti-Clinton campaign gave Trump a 1 percent advantage, and that was enough to shift a handful of states.
In addition to the Trump campaign, several outside groups went on the attack. Among the leaders was ForAmerica, which published 69 videos aimed at raising Clinton's negative.
Their stats:
— 93,591,377 total video views.
— 82,909,315 total unique video views.
— 4,227,768 average reach per post.
— 532,062,656 total impressions.
In their analysis, they cited a Pew survey that found 20 percent of of social media users changed their views on a political or social issue based on what they had seen.
Some 5 percent said social media changed their opinion in a negative direction 24 percent against Clinton and 19 percent against Trump.
And the increased negative sentiment for Clinton equated to about 1 percent in the popular vote.
David Bozell, president of the 9 million member ForAmerica, said, "We did not see an election — we witnessed a referendum against the corruption from the ruling class in Washington, which is what ForAmerica set out to accomplish when we began mobilizing our digital grassroots audience in 2010."
Paul Bedard, the Washington Examiner's "Washington Secrets" columnist, can be contacted at pbedard@washingtonexaminer.com
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