Republican front-runner Donald Trump’s Twitter army is going to vote, a research company in Texas predicted Tuesday.
Trump has a massive following on Twitter with 8.1 million followers. A recent survey estimates that roughly 70 percent of his followers are actual supporters of the Republican front-runner. The study sought to identify Twitter followers with voter data in order to understand how supportive Trump’s followers really are. After the Twitter and voter sets of data were merged, it was found that 90 percent of Trump’s actual supporters on Twitter have a history of voting.
Donald Trump bragged about his ability to get people from the left to switch sides for him, and this survey appears to prove him right. A little over 30 percent of Trump’s followers were registered Republicans, with the rest made up of independents and Democrats.
The study also found that Trump supporters are not as hard-lined as conservatives on issues like gay marriage and gun control, but care much more about immigration and Obamacare.
Trump followers also have a much greater history of large campaign donations when compared to Twitter followers of former Secretary Hillary Clinton. Forty percent of followers have a history of donating $1,000 or more to political campaigns in the past, compared to just 32 percent for Clinton.
According to this study, Trump followers are more vocal than the general population, coming out in much higher numbers, and much more involved in funding campaigns than Clinton’s supporters. Trump’s less conservative stances on certain issues like gay marriage don’t appear to bother his supporters, and appears to be enough to convince voters to cross the aisle.
Of Trump’s 8.1 million Twitter followers, only 161 actually responded to the questions asked in the poll, making the percent of followers that responded a solid zero. Therefore, the questions regarding specific issues are not readily transferable to the general population. Researchers matched followers to 97,000 names on the voting list. This much larger pool yielded the voting and donation data, making the research data involving donations and voter history much more valid with respect to the general state of Trump’s followers on Twitter.
The data presupposes that Trump’s followers are easily translated into supporters in real life as well. There are many reasons that someone would follow Donald Trump on Twitter, whether it be for informational or entertainment purposes. It could be the case that Trump’s followers are actually Clinton supporters when November comes around. This type of research into Twitter support is new.
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