What Happens When You Concede to Donald Trump? Jeb Bush, Ted Cruz, and John Kasich Implode on Facebook Crowdbabble Follow May 19, 2016 · 7 min read

By Katie Meyer

There’s no participation award for losing the Republican nomination to a reality TV star. In an unprecedented race, Jeb Bush, Ted Cruz, and John Kasich couldn’t stump the Trump, despite their efforts on the ground and online.

With hundreds of posts, the three runners-up pushed hard for higher engagement and more followers on social media — hoping it would translate into votes. But Trump won in the primaries and on the Internet, with 16.5 million followers across the three largest platforms: more than Bush, Cruz, and Kasich combined.

What happens to losers on social media? And will Bush, Cruz, and Kasich wallow, or rally around the winner?

Et Tu, Facebook Fans?

In terms of followers, it’s not a question of which unfortunate candidate is in decline: it’s who is worse off. Having lost hope, non-Trump fans have started to unlike and unfollow their preferred candidates. When abandoning support for a campaign is as easy as one click to unlike, it seems that loyalty is fleeting.

Over the past five months, Ted Cruz experienced steep growth in Facebook fans. He reached almost 1 million page likes at his peak.