Hillary Clinton (Slate)
Even though Hillary Clinton lost the election (though not the popular vote!), one of her tweets ranked third in most-shared globally. So…consolation prize?
Twitter revealed its top trends last week, and shared Clinton’s tweet that’s been shared multiple times around the world:
Hillary Clinton’s tweet (The Hollywood Reporter)
According to Twitter, the tweet of the already-iconic quote has been re-tweeted 634K+ times and favorited 1M+ times.
Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump (US Weekly)
If you know any men who come off as hostile towards women (and let’s be honest, we’ve all ran across more than one) they’re more likely to support Trump. It’s science!
Three researchers at The Washington Post surveyed 700 U.S. citizens this past June. (Keep in mind that it was before Trump’s hot-mic revelations that he’s sexually assaulted women in his past.) The goal was to see how ideas about gender, specifically women, affected a potential voter’s ability to support Trump. The researchers tested for this by giving respondents surveys with statements about women and feminism, and then asked who said respondent was supporting in the presidential election.
The results are interesting:
We found that sexism was strongly and significantly correlated with support for Trump, even after accounting for party identification, ideology, authoritarianism and ethnocentrism. In fact, the impact of sexism was equivalent to the impact of ethnocentrism and much larger than the impact of authoritarianism.
To put this plainly: “Hostile sexism was nearly as good at predicting support for Trump as party identification was.”
No wonder all the woke baes are all #ImWithHer.
Donald Trump (News2Morrow)
Seriously. I am not fucking with you, I promise.
We’re finally getting to see how the Trump campaign has been spending its money. And the results are…illuminating. Let’s call it that. I don’t think that the results really shocked anyone, as far amount of money goes, but it’s a little, uh, different (to use a real Southern phrase).
The Washington Post got ahold of Trump’s Federal Election Commission (FEC) filings, which detail his campaign spending. The report covered June 2015 through September 2016. During that timeframe, Trump’s campaign has spent $1.8M on polling data. But Trump appears to be pinching his pennies so he spend more in another area: namely, hats.
Yes, hats. The campaign has thus far spent $3.2M on hats alone. Within that, the campaign paid $423K to the company that made his “Make America Great Again” hats.
And it’s not just the hats Trump likes:
Overall, Trump’s spent about $15.3 million on collateral — shirts, hats, signs, etc. — more than he has spent on field consulting and voter lists and data.
In case you can’t do math, here’s that info in graph form:
Total Trump campaign spending by category (The Washington Post)
As the Post says of Trump, “he has spent at least twice as much on collateral as he has on payroll.” The Trump campaign employs a lean staff of 82 people.
But come on, with all the other shit that we’ve learned about this (I can’t, in good conscience, call him a man)…thing, this piece of information is almost innocuous and eccentric. Doesn’t take away from the absolute craziness that is this election, though.
Dating (The Love Hawk)
Earlier this year, Match.com released its annual Singles in America study. The study surveyed 5K+ singles ages 18-70 in 2015 on a variety of subjects pertinent to those who date. The results are fascinating, in no small part because Donald Trump was still a sideshow attraction and not a full-blown potential threat at the time.
Without further ado, here are some findings:
Clinton supporters are:
Trump supporters are:
But some benefits are bi-partisan, as the press release touts:
Individuals who are passionate about political issues (regardless of their affiliation) have better sex, with 13% more orgasms; they are also 32% more likely to experience multiple orgasms.
If that’s not a good reason to get politically involved/educated (or fuck across the aisle, at the very least), I don’t know what is.
Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump (CNN)
With all the craziness surrounding this election, I’ve gotten more and more curious about how the Google Trends numbers stack up for both Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump. Let’s take a look!
First, here’s a Google Trends graph of searches for the presidential candidates within the past week (Oct. 24-Oct. 31):
National search interest in the candidates, past week (Google Trends)
Here’s the long-term trend of Google users searching “hillary clinton” over the past five years:
Search term ‘hillary clinton’ interest over time (Google Trends)
Check out those spikes!! That first large spike is from Jul. 24-30, 2016. The second spike is Sept. 11-17, 2016.
And here’s the same for “donald trump:”
Search term ‘donald trump’ interest over time (Google Trends)
Here’s how searches for the two candidates look over time (fittingly, Clinton’s in blue, Trump’s in red):
Search terms ‘hillary clinton’ and ‘donald trump’ over time (Google Trends)
Here’s “hillary clinton” and “donald trump” searched over the past 12 months only in the U.S.:
Search terms ‘hillary clinton’ and ‘donald trump’ over the past 12 months in the U.S. (Google Trends)
To be honest, I really don’t know how to parse this data. It seems that people who are searching for Trump…Google him more often? Needless to say, we won’t get any clear answers here.
Asian-American voter (The Huffington Post)
Recent data shows that Asian-Americans are leaving the Republican party to vote Democrat.
Through the 1990s, Asian-Americans were more likely to vote Republican. It’s thought that Asian-American generally voted for the Republican candidate due to connecting with fiscally and socially conservative platforms. Asian-Americans voted Republican around 55% of the time during the 1992 presidential election between Republican George H.W. Bush and Democrat Bill Clinton (who ended up winning). The 2000 election became a turning point when more Asian-Americans began supporting the Democrat candidate. In 2012, Barack Obama won with Asian voters by “nearly 50 percentage points.” Karthick Ramakrishnan of the National Asian American Survey attributes this outcome to Democrats actively trying to win the Asian-American vote.
Party Identification Among Asian-Americans (NPR)
Over time, Asian-Americans gravitating towards the Democrats doesn’t seem like a big deal, and more like a natural shift over time. Except that it might not be. This fact becomes more important in this election where surveys have shown Asian-Americans rejecting many points of Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump’s platform: keeping out and deporting immigrants, diplomacy with China, among other aspects.
But it’s too early to tell whether this shift for Asian-Americans toward the Democrats is a blip on the radar or foretelling a larger, more long-term trend. According to Ramakrishnan, it’s too early to tell. In 2015, 47% of Asian-Americans identified as politically independent.
In October 2016, a survey found that registered Asian-American voters supported Hillary Clinton over Trump by a 4-to-1 lead.
Condoms (StyleCaster)
This year, California residents will head to the polls, and be asked to vote on something unique to the Golden State: what happens on a porn shoot.
Proposition 60, a.k.a. the Condoms in Pornographic Films Initiative, proposes that adult performers wear condoms during scenes where they “actually engage in vaginal or anal penetration by a penis.” (Side note: can we just appreciate that this language made it into a ballot measure?) Aside from that essential fact, the measure requires producers of pornographic films to pay for medical vaccinations and testing related to sexually transmitted diseases (STDs), and to obtain the state health license.
This measure would cover the San Fernando Valley, where the majority of the porn industry’s films are shot. The measure is not without precedent: In 2012, 56% of voters approved a similar measure, called Measure B, that covered Los Angeles County.
A recent University of Southern California Dornsife/LA Times poll showed that 55% of respondents would support the measure if they had to vote that day. Over 1K people were surveyed.
But Prop 60 also has the potential to harm one of California’s booming industries. Right now, perfumers get tested regularly for STDs, and shooting shuts down if an outbreak occurs. It’s pretty self-governed. But passing the measure might open up liability for independent producers and private companies that distribute porn films.
One reason behind opposing Prop 60 hinges on the fact that it could drive the business elsewhere, to a place that has less stringent (or no) regulations. This concern also has precedent in data: In 2012, the year Measure B passed in Los Angeles, FilmLA reported that there were 480 permits pulled for shoots involving “nonsimulated sex.” In 2013, that number plummeted drastically to 40 permits, and has been dropping year-over-year since. Implementing Prop 60 would also cost the state around $1M to “license and regulate film production, and an additional several million dollars in lost taxes if the industry flees California.”
As you can see, there are many aspects to consider whether you’re for or against Prop. 60. Californians, make sure you do your research before you vote!
A single lady’s ring finger (NY Mag The Cut)
Single women are a force.
Granted, they’ve always been a force to be reckoned with. But now they’re becoming a powerful voting bloc that could decide this election.
This hasn’t gone unnoticed. Author Rebecca Traister’s book All the Single Ladies: Unmarried Women and the Rise of an Independent Nation focused on this demographic and how its members are shaping and redefining social norms when the book was released earlier this year. One of Traister’s sources, Page Gardner, predicted that “there could be more unmarried women in the electorate this year than married women — and they vote super left.”
Single Women On The Rise (NPR)
This trend gained steam in 2012. Single women comprised 53% of the voting population, and supported President Barack Obama at around 55%. Compare this to men, who supported Obama at around 45%.
And beware, these single ladies are selective with their votes: The results of the American Women Web survey in the Elle March 2016 issue found that 86% of single women, and 84% of overall women, would not vote for a candidate that was anti-women. This wasn’t partisan, since 73% of Republican women agreed with that statement.
Hillary Clinton (YouTube)
Welcome to Sex & Election 2016 Week on Sex & Stats! From now until Tuesday, Nov. 8th (Election Day for those in the U.S.), I’m bringing you the best in political-themed statistics that intersect with sexuality, gender, race, etc. And this presidential race has been a veritable GOLD MINE for this shit. I’m not even joking (as you’ll find out this week).
Until 11:59 p.m. PST, you’ll get two posts a day on this topic. (Yes, even on Friday!) Get ready for 11 more posts that will make you laugh, cry, and possibly weep for the state of the country, all using data.
Sex & Stats: Where Numbers Come to Bang 