Identifying Republican and Democrat Social Media Users

The prevalence of social media in politics has made elected officials and candidates for public office more accountable and accessible to voters. And the ability to publish content and broadcast it to millions of people instantaneously allows campaigns to carefully manage their candidates’ images based on rich sets of analytics in real time and at almost no cost.

It’s also no secret that during this year’s midterm election there was a huge blue wave, in which we Democrats had the biggest gain in the House since the Post-watergate election in 1974. Social media and the internet had its role in their gain due to a call-for-action online from other Democrats, but just how different were the parties back then regarding their demographics and internet involvement compared to today?

Using data from Pew Research we can take a closer look into who these internet users and voters are.

Below is a map of Democrats and Republicans across the U.S.

America’s Democratic party, which throughout its 186-year history has always been a coalition of groups aware that they are not a national majority. It is a group regarded

as racial minorities (blacks, Hispanics, Asians) and of culturally liberal, highly educated

people from affluent metropolitan areas. Below is a bar graph of which party is more popular with each ethnicity. While the percentage rates for minorities is small, it’s fact that among each minority group had a higher percentage rate for Democrats while the majority (whites) had Republicans being their more popular party.

Below is a bar graph comparing the percentages that each party has for each ethnicity.

Now, 2010 was Facebook’s year. It was the first time it overtook google as the world’s most used website beating it by almost 3%. And according to Pew Research, in 2010 around two-thirds (68%) of U.S. adults over 20-years-old used Facebook. This is a huge jump, because as of January 2018, Statista researched and found that 58.3 million U.S. Facebook users were between 25 and 34 years old.

Below is a column graph showing the average ages amongst different ethnicities that used social media.

Surprisingly enough, women in 2010 were more likely to lean to be Republicans while today data by Pew Research Center states that 56% of women today consider themselves Democrats or lean Democratic.

Below is a pie graph showing which party both sexes are more likely to learn towards in 2010.

Now that we know the demographics, data shows us that Republicans were more active on social media than Democrats in 2010, with a three percent difference between them. 16% of Republicans posted content on social media compared to Democrats with only 13% of them posting content. Democrats may be the bigger group, but Republicans continue to overcome them in political activeness online.

Below is a bar graph comparing whether republicans and democrats used social media in 2010.

In conclusion, while social media use has grown rapidly over the last decade, it was not as used to their advantage in 2010. Democrats had the upper political party strength in America in 2010 as they do today in 2018, with 31% of U.S. citizens identifying to that party and 24% being Republicans (Gallup polling). Still, Democrats are not as politcally active as Republicans are. Should that change over time, another major blue wave could happen and they would be using size to their advantage. Platforms like Facebook and Twitter will continue to be a key a key venue for political debate and discussion and at times a place to engage in civic-related activities.