Social Media Accounts (TikTok, YouTube, X/Twitter) of the Candidates in the 2025 German Federal Election

The research project, SPARTA (Social Media Analysis for Everyone), funded by dtec.bw (which is funded by the European Union – NextGenerationEU), monitors the 2025 German federal election live as it unfolds on TikTok, YouTube and X/Twitter.
Since November 7, 2024, the day the "traffic light" coalition collapsed, we have been collecting and analyzing all German-language posts and reposts on X (formerly Twitter) related to the federal elections. Simultaneously, we gather data from TikTok and YouTube, focusing on the accounts of political parties, including those of candidates and current members of the Bundestag, during the same period.
Our analysis includes, among other things, the stances expressed towards political parties and leading candidates, the most discussed issues and hashtags, the outreach of political parties across different platforms, the visibility of female candidates, the occurrence of negative campaigning, the rise of toxic language, and the activity of various actors across platforms.
We publish the results in real time on our publicly accessible dashboard (https://dtecbw.de/sparta/), which provides interactive and customizable graphics, making it relevant to a broad audience from politics, academia, journalism, and society.
To facilitate real-time analysis of the election campaign, we compiled a dataset based on the data of the federal election officer (Bundeswahlleiterin), containing the TikTok, YouTube and X/Twitter handles of all candidates running for a seat in the parliament. This dataset includes the handles as well as additional information about the candidates from eight political parties: AfD, BSW, Buendnis 90/Die Gruenen, CDU, CSU, Die Linke, FDP and SPD.