There is an upcoming runoff election in El Paso scheduled for May 26 with early voting scheduled to begin on May 18. The national midterms follow in November with four city representative seats on the ballot. There are seven Democratic primary seats in the runoff and one Republican primary seat. The Republican runoff between Adam Bauman and Manuel Barraza, a convicted felon, for District 16 will determine who the Republican nominee will be to challenge Veronica Escobar for her seat in November.
In the Democratic primary runoff, there are four candidates facing off for two judicial seats, the 168th District Court and County Court at Law 2. It is in the four Justice of the Peace seats where much of the runoff campaigning is happening. Three incumbents are hoping to hold on to their seats. Incumbent Enedina “Nina” Serna faces challenger Rosalie Dominguez for the Precinct 6, Place 2 seat, while incumbent Ruben Lujan is facing off against Dora H. Aguirre for the Place 1 in Precinct 6 seat. For the Precinct 2 seat, incumbent Brian J. Haggerty is being challenged by Christie Saiz. The runoff race that has raised the most controversy is incumbent Lucilla “Lucy” Najera’s Precinct 5 seat. Najera is being challenged by Dora Oaxaca. Both candidates have had controversies going into the runoff election.
The only runoff election without an incumbent is the Justice of the Peace Precinct 1 race between attorneys Denise Butterworth and Octavio Dominguez.
Much of the voter outreach in these races is happening on social media, especially in the Najera and Oaxaca race with posts accusing each other of wrongdoing. Najera also used a picture of herself in a recent mailer that was likely AI generated by her campaign. Some argue that online political activity influences the outcome of the election while others say it does little to help a candidate win their election.
The Slacktivism Hypothesis
The slacktivism hypothesis argues that online efforts like sharing, liking a post or engaging in a political debate online gives a false sense of accomplishment ultimately undermining meaningful offline activities that lead to political change. The argument is that because posting or engaging online requires minimal effort, the activity fails to make a political difference. It makes people feel engaged, but their online activity does not transcend to the votes that decide an election is the argument.
In essence, the hypothesis argues that low-effort online political engagement, like posting or arguing online, is a substitute for canvassing or voting, thereby suppressing votes instead of encouraging voters to perform their civic duty.
There is, however, the argument that online activity has a “spill over” effect that acts like the first step in meaningful political engagement.
Among the problems identified in the use of social media in the political process is that social media tends to become a bias bubble where the user is limited to content algorithms defined for the consumers by their biased engagement online. Left leaning users, for example, tend to gravitate to left-leaning political dialog whereas right-leaning users are influenced by like-minded content thus leaving the users in a bubble reinforcing their bias instead of challenging it.
However neither side of the debate over slacktivism can claim victory because American election results have not provided a clear example of a successful campaign succeeding via social media. There is, however, one election showing measurable results between social media only campaigning and traditional campaigning.
The México Example
According to a 2016 Harvard research paper [see note below] a Mexican candidate, Jaime Rodríguez Calderón known as “El Bronco” won the 2015 Nuevo León governorship on a campaign where he bypassed the news media and instead relied on Facebook and Twitter to mobilize voters towards his independent campaign. He outperformed his closest rival by almost 25 percentage points.
To the researchers trying to understand the implications of the slacktivism hypothesis, the election demonstrated how social media affected voters because of the candidate’s extreme reliance on social media against candidates running traditional campaigns. As an independent, Rodríguez Calderón, was not expected to do well and much less win the election. Mexican political parties are primarily funded through public government money with the campaign money allocated based on the party’s previous performance. Independent campaigns cannot offer the past performance necessary, leaving them with much smaller allocation of campaign funds. Although private funding is possible, it is seldom enough to overcome the public funding the campaigns in México use for party operations and campaign activities.
Rodríguez Calderón was the first independent candidate to win a gubernatorial race since 1946.
According to the researchers, Rodríguez Calderón won by having his “Facebook page became the key information infrastructure supporting public policy conversations among citizens.”
His win directly challenged the stranglehold at the time by the two dominant parties by bypassing their lock on the news media and engaging directly with the voters through Facebook and Twitter. The use of social media by his campaign is credited with his election win. This begs the question, will his campaign model work in El Paso?
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Will “El Bronco’s” Election Work in El Paso?
The gubernatorial win by Rodríguez Calderón is the example of social media mobilizing voters to the polls. The question is, can the model be effective in an El Paso election ten years after “El Bronco” showed that it could work?
Although the Mexican candidate’s lack of campaign funding is common in El Paso elections there remain significant differences between American and Mexican elections, notwithstanding the use of public funds versus private funding for elections. In addition to the differences in funding there are also different voter demographics and voter participation between the two examples. This is in addition to changing views about social media over the last ten years.
Before looking for specific examples among local political races it is important to first note the lack of social media engagement in the El Paso political party platforms locally. The El Paso County Democratic Party Facebook page has a little over 4,000 followers as of today and a post by the party’s banner bearer – Veronica Escobar had one like today. Likewise, the party’s X (formerly Twitter) account has only 164 followers today and the party has not posted any posts on the account. Likewise for the party’s Instagram account which has less than 2,000 followers.
The El Paso Republicans have almost 3,000 followers on their Facebook page and their recent posts show more engagement than El Paso’s congresswoman in her party’s Facebook. Like their Democratic counterparts, the El Paso Republicans also have not posted on their X account and have around 300 followers on it. The El Paso Republicans do not have an active Instagram account.
The lack of effort by party officials suggests that they do not see any value in social media for voter mobilization.
Among the issues that affect El Paso elections include low voter turnout, weak news media coverage and low information voters.
Nonetheless, over the last election cycles, several candidates used social media to reach voters, likely due to the lack of campaign funding that forced them to rely on free mediums to mobilize voters. No El Paso candidate to date has successfully used social media to perform well in any election to date.
El Paso voters feel disconnected, uninformed and usually are cynical about candidates running for office although many openly discuss politics online. Moreover, younger voters report seeing issues about politics online but many lack the understanding of how to translate their online political activities to meaningful ballot box engagements.
Although in the case of El Paso voters, online activities suggest enthusiasm and provide visibility towards engaged discussions on public policy issues, the visibility has not translated towards votes.
The 2023 climate change proposition fully illustrates the disconnect between active online engagement by young voters that at the end of the day their substantial and enthusiastic activism was not enough to mobilize enough young voters to overcome the older voters that killed Proposition K at the ballot box.
But El Paso hasn’t proven or disproven the slacktivism hypothesis because voter turnout for Proposition K was led by the traditional older voter as the historical record shows is common. Although younger voters were active in Proposition K, their lack of voting for it does not indicate that online political activities undermine voter turnout because the turnout for the climate measure remained consistent with past turnouts.
Nonetheless, unfunded candidates continue to use social media to reach voters each election cycle, perhaps because they believe it can mobilize voters or because they have no other alternative to reach voters because of the lack of funding, or both. The two local political parties lack of a meaningful social media presence suggests that they also do not believe it can influence voters.
However, younger candidates like Chris Canales remain prolific social media users, using them as part of their voter outreach. Canales, in particular, keeps his social media channels active, engages with voters and maintains an active website about his official activities outside of the official city website.
Canales already faces an opponent months before the first day to file to run for city council. Arturo R. Alluin’s campaign is being managed by former city representative Isabel Salcido. Although Alluin has launched traditional voter mobilization strategies like block walking, this early in the campaign it is hard to know if his campaign will use social media as part of its voter engagement strategies.
Research paper note: Philip N. Howard, et al., “Social Media, civic Engagement, and the Slacktivism Hypothesis: Lessons from México’s ‘El Bronco’,” Journal of International Affairs, Winter 2016 Vol. 70, No.1., Columbia University.