Posted on 08/14/2015 2:22:11 PM PDT by SeekAndFind
Conservatives on Twitter are buzzing about this as a sign that Trumpmania may be overblown. If Trump fans aren’t likely to actually turn out for him once we start counting votes, who cares what his polls say? (Maybe not coincidentally, Rasmussen’s post-debate poll of likely Republican voters was the worst one for Trump this week.) I was surprised at the numbers at first, thinking Trump’s fan base is probably mostly composed of older voters. Older voters tend to skew right, after all, and older voters would be more familiar with him from his decades of fame. And older voters famously turn out in high numbers on election day. Shouldn’t the eligibility numbers among his fans be high, not freakishly low?
But that’s the wrong way to think about this.
Trump finishes at or near the bottom in five of the six social-media demographics tested: His audience is the least likely to be eligible to vote, the least likely to come from key early states, the least likely to include women, Christians, or college students. What gives? I think that’s easily answered, at least in the eligibility category. Namely, most of Trump’s social-media audience was built before he got serious about politics this summer. He has 3.7 million Twitter followers, a gigantic number. To put that in perspective, Marco Rubio’s followers number around 815,000. If you’re following Rubio on Twitter, it’s because you’re into politics. If you’re following Trump, it’s most likely because you’re into “The Apprentice” — or possibly because the guy’s been using his Twitter feed for years to attack other celebrities who’ve criticized him, making his one of the most gawkworthy accounts on the platform. Simply put, Trump’s social-media following contains an ocean of people who like TV but may not care much about politics, even to the point where many aren’t registered to vote. That’s where that 39.4 percent figure is coming from. Importantly, though, that doesn’t mean that Trump’s primary polls are overstating the support he can expect on election day. It may be that the 25 percent he’s pulling in 2016 surveys represents righties who are passionately committed to his cause and will turn out for him. It’s just that those righties are a smallish percentage of the total number of people who follow Trump on social media for a wide variety of reasons. In fact, like Ace says, this gives Trump a unique opportunity to introduce apolitical people into the political process. If he can get some of his “Apprentice” fans who’ve never voted before to register and support him in the Republican primaries, he’d be a deadly serious threat to win.
As for the other results here, I can buy that his following is mostly male and that he’s not a huge draw for those with “strong Christian values.” I can buy that his appeal is more working-class, i.e. a smaller percentage comparatively of college students. I can also buy that the percentage of his total following is unusually small in the early states. That too is an artifact of his TV fame, I think: Trump probably has much larger percentages of followers from populous blue states like New York and California than the rest of the competition thanks to “The Apprentice.” It’s not that he has fewer total followers in Iowa than, say, Marco Rubio — the opposite is true, almost certainly — it’s just that his total followers are likely more evenly distributed nationally thanks to his celebrity than those for Rubio, who probably has big clusters in his home state of Florida and the early presidential states where voters are starting to pay attention to him. Exit question: What does the “center-left” row in the graphic above signify? It’s not explained anywhere at the link, and it makes no sense to me that Trump would lag in that metric. If his fame is still mostly apolitical, he should be the most likely candidate here to attract center-leftists. Liberals watched “The Apprentice” too, after all.
Doubt it.
just 27% of ears audience was able to vote, but they got a 98% turnout thanks to the dead and multiple votes from the same people.
It’s another hit piece. Trump has them scared and I, for one, am enjoying watching “them” squirm..
They’re prepping for the vote rigging.
Pure propaganda in my opinion. How would they even get a general number. I don’t believe this story at all.
There absolutely no way they can determine a person’s eligibility to vote let a lone the person’s real name.
Now, Hillary Clinton’s followers are all typical democrat voters and will all vote since most of them don’t even exist.
They’re prepping for the vote rigging.
Baloney!
Anyway, 39% of Trump’s audience is worth way more than 100% of Jebs....
Extremely unscientific for many reasons.
Do they know if they are even real people? There are millions of social media accounts that have no human being associated.
GOPe using the Left tactics:
Trump voters are white, blue collar, angry uneducated males.
Nevermind that Trump has the most potential for the independent and Dem-crossover votes and has done well with women despite the smears.
There’s another factor. When the kids get interested in politics, they’ll influence the votes of their parents and grandparents.
Quotes of the day (Allahpundit off his meds again)
“The most credible candidate is Jeb Bush, a far-sighted policy wonk whose greatest asset and liability is his last name.”
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-gop/3246592/posts
January 13, 2015
I didn’t Tweet for the guy, but I haven’t put my age in my profile. I rarely use the account.
How do they know how old people are?
People need to realize that Hotair is nothing but an anti-Trump site obsessed with taking Trump out. Why continue to give them props by clicking on that site is beyond me.
Plus there is the fact that (a)some people choose not to register to vote because (b)they feel there is nobody worth voting for. Change (b) and a change in (a) follows.
No .....they don’t know.
Exactly. Let’s assume for a moment every number in this article is accurate. Trump has 3.1M followers On Facebook of which about 1.5M would be eligible to vote. Little Jebbie he has 240,000 followers on Facebook. Any way they cut this Jebbie is getting hammered. I have never seen the elites go to these lengths to try and discredit somebody. It’s hilarious. The Republican party will fight harder against its own candidates than it ever will against Hillary.
Sad...
In actuality Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders has the highest percentage of real Twitter followers - over 90% of them are real.
On the flip side, Shrillary Clinton has the highest percentage of FAKE followers (also mentioned in the article I linked above).
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