What if Facebook likes determined who would be president?

One like doesn’t equal one prayer, no matter how many times people spam that crap on Facebook, but what if one like equaled one vote? FiveThirtyEight decided to answer that question by counting how many likes each presidential primary candidate has generated on Facebook, and then using those numbers to determine how popular each of them are. Carson is the most-popular with 26% of the country wide Facebook likes, while Sanders and Trump are tied for second place with 23% of the country’s likes. Cruz comes in distant third with 12%, mostly thanks to Texas, where he served as the state’s  Solicitor General from 2003 to 2008.

What if instead of going out to cast our votes at the polls, the U.S. chose its presidential primary winners with Facebook likes? In that case, Ben Carson would be up against Bernie Sanders come November. And, assuming each candidate’s proportion of likes remained the same, Carson would win it all. FiveThirtyEight published an interactive map showing which presidential primary candidates have the most Facebook likes in each county in the U.S. Across the entire country, Carson garnered 26% of all Facebook likes for presidential candidates, Sanders and Donald Trump received 23% of likes, Ted Cruz hit 12% and Hillary Clinton reached 8%. While it may not be an accurate representation of who will be the 45th president of the U.S., the interactive map includes some interesting statistics. Carson leads 27 states and was the top Republican candidate in 36 states, while Sanders lead 18 states but topped the Democrats in all 50 states. Trump only led in 5 states and was the top Republican candidate in 14. Those three candidates dominated the top three of almost every state. Clinton only made it into third place in two states, New York and Massachusetts, while Cruz took third in six states and second in Texas. The most impressive lead was Sanders in his home state of Vermont with 77% of likes.