Seven months before the first ballots are cast, most of the candidates are still introducing themselves to voters.

“If a voter doesn’t know you, one way to get them to know you is by touting an issue or policy that’s near and dear to that person’s heart,” said Mary Anne Marsh, a Democratic strategist.

Daniel Kreiss, a professor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill who studies how campaigns employ digital strategies, said “the sorts of issues that a candidate highlights is also going to be a window onto the types of voters that they’re going to need to reach ... in order to win.”

This analysis is based on posts from each campaign’s Twitter, Facebook and Instagram accounts, with the words in each post classified by policy area. Posts that did not discuss policy — such as invitations to and photos from events, most fundraising appeals or general statements about the goals of the campaign (“Let’s dream big, fight hard—and win!”) or about Trump — were not included. The share of social media posts that involved policy varied between candidates, as did how much they used social media platforms.

[How well do you know the Democratic candidates?]