Spock wrote:
Trump didn't win Wisconsin because Cambridge Analytics helped him win a few truck drivers. He won Wisconsin because the smartest woman in the world took it completely for granted and didn't go there for 6 months.
Cambridge Analytics can't analyze something that doesn't exist and I submit that the demographic that put Trump over the top is the demographic that is least present on social media.
Funny you should mention that.
Quote:
President Donald Trump’s attacks on the mainstream media may be rooted in statistical reality: An extensive review of subscription data and election results shows that Trump outperformed the previous Republican nominee, Mitt Romney, in counties with the lowest numbers of news subscribers, but didn't do nearly as well in areas with heavier circulation.
POLITICO’s findings — which put Trump’s escalating attacks on the media in a new context — were drawn from a comparison of election results and subscription information from the Alliance for Audited Media, an industry group that verifies print and digital circulation for advertisers. The findings cover more than 1,000 mainstream news publications in more than 2,900 counties out of 3,100 nationwide from every state except Alaska, which does not hold elections at the county level.
The results show a clear correlation between low subscription rates and Trump’s success in the 2016 election, both against Hillary Clinton and when compared to Romney in 2012. Those links were statistically significant even when accounting for other factors that likely influenced voter choices, such as college education and employment, suggesting that the decline of local media sources by itself may have played a role in the election results.
That gives new force to the widely voiced concerns of news-industry professionals and academicians about Trump’s ability to make bold assertions about crime rates, unemployment and other verifiable facts without any independent checks. Those concerns, which initially were raised during the campaign, were largely based on anecdotes and observations. POLITICO’s analysis suggests that Trump did, indeed, do worse overall in places where independent media could check his claims.
To many news professionals and academics who’ve studied the flow of political information, there’s no doubt that a lack of trusted local media created a void that was filled by social media and partisan national outlets. “Without having the newspaper as kind of ‘true north’ to point you to issues, you are left to look for other sources,” said Penny Abernathy, a University of North Carolina professor who has closely studied the decline of local media. “And because of the dramatic rise in social media, that ends up being your Facebook friends.”
https://www.politico.com/story/2018/04/ ... ers-505605Spock's truck driver comment ignores data like this which suggests that the areas where Trump improved over Romney the most were areas in which traditional media had the lowest penetration. That means that even though they may have a lower social media presence than in other parts of the country, more people are likely to rely on social media postings as the sole or a primary source of news without traditional fact checks to balance that out.
Yes, Hillary made a lot of mistakes in the campaign, but there were a variety of factors that contributed to her defeat.
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