How Republicans Are Using Social Media to Win Mid-term Elections

Matt Lira, digital communications director for House Minority Whip Eric Cantor, spends his days making social media a core ingredient of conservative strategy, and it's already beginning to show signs of success.

Republicans have passed Democrats in social media use. Mid-term candidates, a central focus of Cantor's position as House Whip, are crushing their left-leaning opponents in Facebook fans and Twitter followers. "We've been very enthusiastic about spreading the good word about social media," Lira says. "Television changed not just how politics and government worked, but it changed who was in government--social media is doing the exact same thing." But Lira has a different, more important goal in mind for social media that goes beyond partisan politics: policy. What goes on behind the closed-off doors of Congress has pushed legislation out of the public's grab, surrounded by all-too-high walls of insular Washington culture. Lira hopes social media will help begin tearing those barriers down.