Twitter/X accounts ot the candidates in the 2023 German state election of Bavaria

Abstract

The research project, SPARTA (Society, Politics, and Risk with Twitter Analysis), funded by dtec.bw (which is funded by the European Union – NextGenerationEU), monitors the 2023 state election campaign in Bavaria live as it unfolds on Twitter/X.

From September 4 to the election day on October 8, 2023, we collect and analyze all German-language posts and reposts related to the election and its central actors in real time. We publish the results in a nowcasting fashion on the project's WebApp (https://dtecbw.de/sparta/). Among other findings, we present the stances expressed toward the main parties and their leading candidates. We also illustrate the salient issues discussed as well as the most frequently used hashtags by the election Twittersphere (for example, all tweets addressing the election and its central actors), political parties, leading candidates, and candidates for a mandate in the state parliament. We also measure the extent of negative campaigning and personalization.

To enable real-time analyses of the election campaign, we created a dataset with the Twitter/X handles of all candidates for a mandate in the state parliament in August 2023. The dataset contains the Twitter/X handles and additional information about the candidates from six parties: CSU, Bündnis 90/Die Grünen, Freie Wähler, AfD, SPD, and FDP.