Does Twitter foreshadow wins for Gregor Robertson, Barinder Rasode, Jonathan Cote, and George Affleck?

In the last Vancouver municipal election, some were surprised when George Affleck was one of two NPA candidates elected to city council.

After all, Affleck had no elected experience, unlike one of his party's losing candidates, Bill Yuen.

But Affleck had far more Twitter followers than any of the other NPA candidates, plus he bought full-page ads promoting himself in advance of the election.

It was enough to push him ahead of the pack.

This election, I'm curious to see if there's any correlation between Twitter followers and the mayoral races in various municipalities.

In Vancouver, Gregor Robertson's @mayorgregor account has 45,400 followers, giving him a huge advantage.

NPA standard-bearer Kirk LaPointe has 7,216 followers of @KirkLapointe.

COPE's Meena Wong has only 576 followers on @meenawong1, whereas independent Bob Kasting is even further back with just 160 followers of @bkasting.

Another independent, Colin Shandler, is far ahead of those two with 2,000 followers of @colinshandler.

Over in Surrey, mayoral challenger and councillor Barinder Rasode has already won the Twitter race with 5,016 followers of @BarinderRasode.

Mayor Dianne Watts's preferred successor, Coun. Linda Hepner, is far back with 1,776 followers of @LindaHepner.

Former mayor Doug McCallum is attempting a political comeback, but he faces an uphill battle with just 431 followers of @mccalum4mayor.

Independent candidate Vikram Bajwa is ahead of both Hepner and McCallum with 2,001 followers of @VikramjsBajwa.

Ranking last in Twitter followers among Surrey mayoral candidates is John Edwards. He has just 351 people tracking @edwards4mayor.

One of the most intriguing mayoral races is taking place in New Westminster between Coun. Jonathan X. Cote and four-term incumbent Wayne Wright.

There are 1,116 followers of @jonathanxcote.

I couldn't even find a Twitter account for Mayor Wright.

If Cote and Rasode each end up winning landslide victories in November, perhaps local politicians will start paying more attention to their Twitter feeds.

And in case you're wondering, Andrea Reimer has the most Twitter followers among Vision Vancouver councillors.

She has 5,344 tracking @andreareimer. Vision's silver medallist on council is Geoff Meggs with 4,504 following @geoffmeggs. Coun. Heather Deal is third with 3,426 followers of @VanRealDeal.

These three Visionistas are all still far behind Affleck, however, who has 9,427 followers of @george_affleck.