DIGITAL DUEL. The first official candidates in the race for the Capital City Mayor. Online trends

Daniel Băluță, Ciprian Ciucu and Cătălin Drulă are the first officially announced candidates for the Bucharest City Hall elections, all three coming from parties currently in the governing coalition. According to data processed and analyzed by NewsVibe, an AI-supported media monitoring platform, the three candidates for the position of General Mayor have received a relatively similar volume of media coverage in the most relevant digital sources over the past month. The USR candidate has the most online content published with emotional undertones, while in the case of the PSD representative, the positive content is broader than the negative, in contrast to the situation of the PNL candidate.

THE PACE AND VOLUME OF APPEARANCES. The agreement reached in the coalition, after weeks of disputes and delays, generates a paradox: although the disagreements among the governing partners regarding the elections in the Capital were motivated by the desire to avoid escalating tensions, the electoral campaign will bring to the forefront a direct confrontation between the representatives of PSD, PNL, and USR – the three currently being the candidates with the highest chances in opinion polls.

As can be seen from the comparative chart of the visibility evolution of the three candidates over the last month, the maximum exposure for the PSD, PNL, and USR candidates in the Bucharest City Hall elections coincided with the moment their candidacies became certain, not necessarily with the formal validation vote. Only in the case of Cătălin Drulă, the peak of mentions was determined by his official designation as the USR candidate for the position of mayor of the Capital.

NewsVibe Chart. The evolution of the number of mentions about Cătălin Drulă, Ciprian Ciucu, and Daniel Băluță, over the last month

The level of visibility in the digital space of the three candidates has been relatively similar. Although Ciprian Ciucu records a slight advantage in the number of mentions, he does not clearly stand out at the top of the ranking, with Daniel Băluță and Cătălin Drulă also being at very close visibility levels.

NewsVibe Chart. The ranking of mentions about the first three candidates announced for the Capital City Hall, over the last month 

VISIBILITY AND COMPARATIVE IMPACT. The competitive analysis engine created by NewsVibe evaluates the ability of political actors to penetrate the online space, directly compared to their competitors.

Both the share of the number of mentions from the total and the share of their estimated impact confirm the balance among the three candidates regarding their presence in relevant online sources.

This type of balanced media coverage also represents an indirect indication that, on numerous occasions, online sources have simultaneously discussed the three names. Even though, in previous weeks, only Cătălin Drulă had firmly expressed his intention to run for the position of General Mayor, there have constantly been signals and speculations regarding a possible entry into the race by Ciprian Ciucu or Daniel Băluță.

NewsVibe Charts. The share of the number of mentions (left), respectively the impact of the mentions (right) about each of the three candidates, from the total cumulative mentions about all

THE TONE OF ONLINE CONVERSATION. The NewsVibe platform has created an advanced automated sentiment analysis system that uses specially trained AI algorithms and LLM tools to detect tonal nuances – favorable, unfavorable, or neutral – in the context of online conversations about topics, people, or public events.

Although most mentions about CIPRIAN CIUCU have appeared in neutral media contexts, the share of negative ones is significantly higher than that of positive ones (a ratio of over 5 to 1 in favor of the negative tone). This tendency towards predominantly negative media coverage is not directly generated by the topic of the Capital City Hall elections, but rather by Ciprian Ciucu's involvement in exchanges with PSD, against the backdrop of attacks launched by social democrats against Prime Minister Ilie Bolojan.

NewsVibe Chart. The automatic evaluation of the tone of online conversation about Ciprian Ciucu, over the month

In the case of DANIEL BĂLUȚĂ, there is a clear dominance of balanced media contexts, without excessive tensions, with positive content considerably exceeding negative content. He has avoided relating to opponents in most public appearances and, despite being one of the current leading figures of PSD, he has not engaged in confrontations within the coalition on governance issues. At the same time, Daniel Băluță has not been directly targeted by sustained attacks from other political actors, so the percentage of neutral references in public discourse about him is very high (88%).

NewsVibe Chart. The automatic evaluation of the tone of online conversation about Daniel Băluță, over the last month

CĂTĂLIN DRULĂ is, in turn, the candidate for whom neutral online media contexts are the least, indicating a high emotional charge of discussions mentioning his name. Over 20% of mentions about the USR representative appear in negative, tense, or conflictual contexts, with a ratio of over 2:1 against positive ones. This tendency reflects Cătălin Drulă's constant involvement – and, more broadly, that of USR – in attacks against potential opponents for the position of General Mayor of the Capital. The percentage of neutral tone reports is the lowest, only 70%.

NewsVibe Chart. The automatic evaluation of the tone of online conversation about Cătălin Drulă, over the last month

*****Synthesis made with the help of a data stream provided by the media monitoring platform NewsVibe Romania. The analysis, data, and images presented have been enhanced with the help of Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence tools.