Facebook and Twitter predicted US election outcomes

The results showed 65 percent of the candidates with a bigger Twitter following won the chief executive’s post in their respective states. Three of the 37 races — in Minnesota, Illinois and Connecticut — were still too close to call Wednesday night and have not been counted in the analysis.

When it comes to Facebook, 20 of the 34 gubernatorial candidates with the most fans, or likes, won the chief-executive spot, according to our review of the data. That’s about 59 percent.

Jerry Brown, with more than 1.1 million Twitter followers, exults after winning California’s governorship.

Those latter figures were closely aligned to a Facebook analysis of the 98 most hotly contested House races, where 74 percent of the candidates with the most Facebook fans won.

We’re not really sure what meaning to assign to the numbers, if any. It goes without saying that many other factors affect the outcome, including incumbency, money and personality — not to mention ideology.