While Democratic frontrunner Hillary Clinton enjoys substantial female support among politicians, there is good evidence that her popularity among average Democratic women has fallen sharply, accordin
While Democratic frontrunner Hillary Clinton enjoys substantial female support among politicians, there is good evidence that her popularity among average Democratic women has fallen sharply, according to a facial analysis of Twitter users.
Researchers from University of Rochester in the US analysed the Twitter follower demographics of Ms Clinton and Republican frontrunner Donald Trump.
At that time, researchers noted that Mr Trump had seven million followers and Ms Clinton had 5.7 million. They studied both candidates’ followers, their user names, geographical information and each follower’s number of followers to determine their influence, MIT Technological Review reported.
In particular, they look at each user’s picture and use a machine-learning programme to determine whether it shows a male or female and to identify that person’s ethnicity.
Researchers found that while 68-year-old Ms Clinton enjoys substantial female support among politicians, there is good evidence that her support among average Democratic women has fallen sharply.
However, this does not seem to have influenced the gender balance among her supporters on Twitter — women make up 45 per cent of her followers, they said.
Mr Trump,69, however, has an almost identical level of support at 45 per cent.
“Apparently Trump’s feud with Megyn Kelly has not alienated female voters,” said Yu Wang from University of Rochester.
Ms Clinton’s supporters are more likely to be African-American or Hispanic than Mr Trump’s, who are more likely to be white, researchers said.
Mr Trump has more very young followers, although many of them do not appear to be old enough to vote. Ms Clinton has a stronger presence among the 18 to 40 age group, they said.
