It is never, ever a good idea to do Twitter polls.

Whoever is responsible for the Twitter accounts of 2020 presidential candidate Eric Swalwell, a congressman who represents Dublin, Castro Valley and other parts of the East Bay, is learning this lesson.

In an ill-advised Monday tweet, Swalwell's congressional account tweeted a poll related to the candidate's ambitious plan to ban the sales of assault weapons and implement a "mandatory buyback program" to round up the 15 million "military-style semiautomatic assault weapons" currently owned by Americans.

"Assault weapons have become the firearm of choice in too many mass shootings," the account tweeted, along with a poll. "We don't have to live this way — those guns only belong on battlefields. Do you support a ban AND buy-back of every weapon of war in America?"

The two options in the poll were, "Yes! Australia already has," and "No. We love Guns > Kids."

After nearly 120,000 responses, "No. We love Guns > Kids," was the clear winner with 79 percent of the vote.

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Twitter polls — especially political ones — can easily be hijacked by other accounts to backfire on the creator. Then, there are the contributions of trolls, who love to skew poll results on social media. Swalwell's campaign probably should have seen this one coming after an ill-fated tweet involving potato chips in April.

While Swalwell was trying to clear the DNC's fundraising requirements to qualify for the first debates in June, the candidate's personal Twitter account urged voters to donate to his campaign.

"$1 could buy you half a bag of chips OR it could save us from a crumbling government," the account tweeted. "How will you spend yours?"

Over 18,000 people replied — and let's just say they wanted chips.

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According to recent analysis from FiveThirtyEight, Swalwell may be in danger of missing the CNN debate stage in late July, and is currently tied with Montana Governor Steve Bullock for the 20th and final spot in the debate.

Bullock did not participate in the June NBC debates.

Eric Ting is an SFGATE staff writer. Email: eric.ting@sfgate.com | Twitter:@_ericting

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