Marco Rubio Winning the "Facebook" Primary in Miami-Dade County, but Bernie Sanders Dominates the City

The political data hounds at FiveThirtyEight have assembled a map of which presidential candidate is most popular on Facebook in every county in America. You'll see seas of blue for Ben Carson, strongholds of gold for Donald Trump, regions of purple for Bernie Sanders, flecks of red in Texas for Ted Cruz, and there, down near the bottom of the map, is a single spot of light brown covering Miami-Dade County. That's for Marco Rubio, who is dominating in only a single county in America: his hometown.

The map is based on the percentage of people liking a specific candidate's official Facebook page among the total number of area residents who have bothered to like any candidates' pages. Obviously, it's not a scientific reflection of actual political polls. Just 58 percent of adults use Facebook, and they tend to be younger and more female. Some candidates' pages predate their political runs, and some candidates' campaigns have drawn people more apt to e-activism than others. 

The map is, however, pretty useful to gauge how popular candidates are in certain areas when compared to the rest of the country. 

In any event, let's look at who is winning the Facebook wars in all of Florida: Yep, Florida is (just barely) Carson Country. Trump comes in a close second, while Bernie Sanders is off in third (interestingly, however, his popularity is seven points lower than it is in the rest of the country). Rubio, the state's senator, is fourth but up seven points from his popularity in the rest of the country. Bush, the state's former governor, is in last place, but at least he's twice as popular here as he is elsewhere. 

To hammer home the point, however, that Facebook likes don't translate into votes, Carson is currently polling in fifth place in Florida, while over on the Democrat side, Sanders is a distant second. Though, it's certainly not shocking that Sanders reigns supreme in the Keys and the counties that are home to both UF and FSU. 

Now let's take a look at where the candidates are in Miami-Dade:Rubio darts to first place here and is a whole 13 points more popular than he is in the rest of the country. Meanwhile, Hillary Clinton is six points more popular on Facebook in Miami than she is elsewhere and twice as popular here as she is in the rest of the country. By Facebook likes, at least, Miami-Dade is Clinton's best county in all of Florida. Carson really isn't much of a thing in Miami, and Jeb Bush gets a bit of a hometown love bump. 

Of course, the real head scratchers are numbers two and three. Sure, both Trump and Sanders are a little less popular here than in the rest of America, but they're still popular. One is running on anti-immigrant rhetoric, and the other is a socialist who flew to Cuba in 1989 to try to meet with Fidel Castro. Mark it down in history. Miami-Dade politics isn't what it used to be. 

Interestingly, Miami is one of the few cities on the map that you can zoom into and get a ZIP-code-by-ZIP-code popularity. When we say Miami, we literally do mean only the City of Miami. Here's what that looks like. Trump is most popular in a Brickell-area ZIP code, which says everything you need to know about the type of people who live in Brickell. Rubio, meanwhile, dominates the western parts of the county, including Little Havana. 

Sanders is most popular in the Biscayne Corridor, while Clinton comes out on top in some of Miami's more African-American ZIP codes. It should be noted, though, that even in Sanders-dominated ZIP codes, Clinton is significantly more popular on Facebook than she is in the rest of the country. Sanders dominated 33137, for example, but Clinton is also 16 points more popular there than her average.