Demo-Graphics: Comics and Politics

Today is election day and for those who haven’t voted, what are you doing reading this? Get out there and vote! We have a handy tool to help you out with that, including finding your polling location.

With that out of the way, we’ve been tracking a lot of information, not just demographic info of those who “like” comic related things on Facebook, but also their registration, political views, and if they donate to political causes. This data is compiled using the same data that’s used for the monthly comic demographic data breakdown.

It felt appropriate to present the year’s worth of data today! So, get ready for the first ever Comics and Politics roundup!

Voter Registration

Voter registration is a key to winning elections, and as we can see through the past year things have been a bit stagnant until August on, which us about when a lot of political organizations would get their voter registration going. There’s a sudden spike in September, but that drops. This data I believe is purchased by Facebook from the open voter roles and then matched to Facebook users.

The below is the total number of people registered for all of Facebook.

Registration Grand TotalHere’s the same information above, but just for those who like comics. You can see the same increase later in the year.

Comic Registration TotalWhere it gets really interesting is when the information is broken down by gender. You can see some of the greatest gains when it comes to registration for Democratic Women, who overtake Democratic Men towards November.

Comic Registration GenderParty Affiliation

Voter registration is one thing, but how one labels their political views is another. Facebook allows individuals to list whatever they’d like as far as party, and the system then categorizes them into Conservative, Liberal, Non-Partisan, etc. In September, they changed that a bit, eliminating Non-Partisan and adding Moderate, Very Conservative, and Very Liberal.

Party affiliation facebookIn May, there was a rather strange drop in data that I can’t explain that only showed up when I added the interests of folks. The data was checked multiple times over a few days and the same thing happened. The data returned to normal the following month. Here’s the same data above, except just those who like comics.

Party affiliation comicsWhile non-partisan dominates the below stats when it comes to gender, when that’s removed in September those that consider themselves Liberal for both men and women becomes the majority and top two results. Those that consider themselves Conservative drops in September.

Party affiliation comics genderDonations

The final thing we can look at is the habits of individuals who donate to conservative and liberal causes. We see the same strange spike we saw in voter registration in September, which makes me think there was an issue with Facebook’s data.

Donations facebookBelow is the above data, but just for comic fans. Interesting enough, the spike we see above occurs to a lesser extent in October instead of September.

Donations comicsInteresting though is when you break out the gender, men donate the least to liberal causes, while liberal women are the most generous. Overall, women became much more generous as the year went on.

Donations comics gender

And that wraps up our first report! Now, go out and vote, there’s still time!