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Arizona Secretary of State Katie Hobbs won her bid to become governor of the state, according to unofficial election results, with 50.3% of the vote.
But a recent Instagram post says the election is a vote, pointing to the number of Instagram followers Hobbs and his Republican opponent Kari Lake have.
“Katie Hobbs has ~2.8 percent of Kari Lake’s Instagram following… Katie Hobbs is the AZ secretary of state and oversees elections… but we’re not allowed to ask anything?” said the video post.
“How can we believe this!?” read the words above an image in the NBC News ad announcing Hobbs as the winner. “Look at their communities!!!”
This post was marked as part of Facebook’s efforts to combat false and misleading information on its News Feed. (Read more about our partnership with Meta, which owns Facebook and Instagram.)
Hobbs certainly has a fraction of Lake’s social media following, though when we compared their posts on November 17th, it was like 3%. Lake has about 496,000 followers; Hobbs had about 15,000.
But as we saw in fact checking for a similar claim, the Senate victory of Pennsylvania Governor Lt. John Fetterman over the Republican candidate Dr. Mehmet Oz, many social media following does not guarantee electoral victory.
Beto O’Rourke, the Democratic candidate for governor of Texas, has about 1.1 million Instagram followers, but failed to unseat Gov. Greg Abbott, who has about 162,000.
Stacey Abrams, the Democratic candidate for governor of Georgia, has about 2.1 million followers, while Governor Brian Kemp, who won the election, has less than 48,000.
Syracuse University professor Jennifer Stromer-Galley, who studies political social messaging, told NPR in August that although social media can help amplify a candidate’s message , does not automatically translate into electoral victories. “They’re talking to supporters first,” Stromer-Galley said, but it’s possible that out-of-state people who won’t vote in that candidate’s election will be involved.
There is no evidence of widespread fraud in the Arizona gubernatorial election, not least because Hobbs has fewer Instagram followers than Lake.
We settle that Pants on Fire claim!
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