The key measure, researchers from Indiana University found, was a candidate’s “tweet share,” the percentage of total tweets about a race that mention them. The more often a candidate is mentioned on Twitter relative to their opponent, the study reported, the greater their chance for victory.

The findings were comprehensive: An analysis of tweets from the 2010 midterm elections found the data correctly predicted the winner in 404 of the 406 House races.

“We plotted it and thought, ‘Holy moly, it was a very strong correlation,’ ” said Fabio Rojas, a sociology professor at Indiana and one of the study’s coauthors. He added that preliminary analysis of last year’s congressional elections show similar results.