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.
Exactly. Insult to our intelligence, if you ask me. Perhaps they think most of Trump's voters are from Broward County.
Well when you have 3.5 million followers and weren’t a politician until 3 months ago. Duh!
The rest are all political Twitter accounts set up specifically for their campaign. So of course they are mostly voters.
Trump’s is his personal account.
This just in:
Phrenologist Experts determine shape of Trump’s head makes him unfit to be President.
The media is desperate to find a higher meaning in Twitter. It’s a spiritual quest for them.
That was my question. Are they checking everyone's names against voter rolls?! If they have time for that, how about checking other things like the names of people who register to vote under the Motor Voter law against a list of who are U.S.Citizens?
It’ll be a nice day when people wake up and realize their ‘conservative’ media heroes are once again intentionally leading the herd to the slaughterhouse.
I doubt I’ll live long enough to see that sudden outbreak of sanity.
Love it! That's about how desperate they are getting.
Don’t know if I will vote for Trump, but I will NEVAH vote for Jeb.
HOT AIR. 86.537% of all statistics are made up on the spot and the rest are just fabricated lies.
...I, for one, am enjoying watching “them” squirm..
Squirm is an understatement. And, yes it is tremendous,fun.
And 49.3728623% of that 86.537% are purely or mostly purely unadulterated indications of things that could, or could not, be true..
Another gope shill calls it in.
For the sake of argument, let’s say that this analysis is completely correct. So what? It’s more than 6 months until the first primary. Plenty of time to register to vote. If DT has the sort of draw that we seem to think he does, then how difficult is it going to be for him to publish a link to register to vote?
Heck, given that DT’s staff monitor the right wing media fairly closely, I wouldn’t be surprised if we see exactly that happen in the next 48 hours.
>> They know this number to three decimal places of accuracy?
Why not. After all, 97.37% of all statistics are made up on the fly. What the heck, make that 97.378%.
The libs would scream at this. New republican voters. after all, how do they know all people signing up are eligible to vote, how about if they're too young to vote (Never mind the libs and ACORN signing up whoever, as long as they vote democRAT).
I don’t know about you, but watching Trump upset the apple cart is amazing to me. All these career politicians, who thought their future was secure, are all of a sudden threatened by someone who isn’t beholden to anyone or anything. “They” can sense their way of life and easy check is now in serious jeopardy.
Yes, I’m enjoying this immensely.
And Sam's #s differed from those given here for Rubio if I recall. But Trump's opposition won't be Rubio. It will be a socially anemic Bush or Cankles.
I love the smell of Washington Cartel fear in the morning...
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