What Big Data Says About the Inaugural Crowd

I live about a half mile from the White House, and obviously I’ve noticed throngs of visitors in town for the Presidential Inauguration. Because I’m a data scientist working at a Big Data intelligence company, I naturally wondered what my data and models have to say about these visitors.

I approached this problem by identifying all the web-enabled devices that appeared in D.C. starting Saturday, 14 January 2017 but were previously located in another state. Next, I ran Resonate Insights against these “visitor devices” and broke them down along partisan lines – Clinton voters and Trump voters.

Some highlights:

• Clinton voters outnumber Trump voters – there are 1.66 Clinton voters in town for every Trump voter. Typically, inaugurations are split 80:20 along supporters and protestors, but 2017 is not your typical year!
• Both groups are enriched for people that have previously attended a political rally, but Clinton’s base is 239% more likely than the average American to have protested previously; Trump’s group is 92%.
• Trump’s supporters are 54% more likely than the average American to be a veteran.
• The two bases split along demographics: Clinton’s base are a diverse assemblage of young professionals. Trump’s base is enriched for white individuals over 65 years old.
• Despite the demographic distinctions, the two camps are financially successful, and are at least 50% more likely than the average American to earn at least $100,000/year.
• Concomitant with their earning potential, both groups are at least 100% more likely to have a Premier or Elite Status with a travel program, but Clinton’s camp values luxurious and time-saving partners over trustworthy and dependable providers valued by Trump’s base.

The advanced geo-targeting tools used to quickly identify the audiences on the ground at the Inauguration should be in the hands of any campaign or advocacy organization looking to gain an immediate competitive edge. The ability to effectively pinpoint your audience, whether they’re attending a rally on Capitol Hill or visiting/living in a target legislative district, is a strong first step to an effective mobilization effort.

Once the on-the-ground audience is identified, big data does the legwork. At Resonate, our advanced dynamic modeling process combines the nation’s largest, long form-surveys of online adults with massive online behavioral activity of more than 15 billion events per day. This “always-on” methodology enabled me to immediately generate valuable insights on today’s Inauguration attendees and consistently allows political groups and brand marketers to precision target and convert the audience segments that drive their success.

About the author: Dr. Daniel Scantlebury is a Data Scientist at Resonate