Democratic Debate #2: The Results Are In…
Resonate’s AI-driven voter insights combined with best-in-class survey research and monitoring both online and offline behaviors reveals a dynamic, nuanced picture of the American electorate. Resonate’s insights go beyond an analysis of the static voter file combined with third-party data. Unlike traditional polling, the Resonate platform not only measures what people say, it measures what they do and why they do it.
The Resonate Platform anonymously analyzes 10 billion daily online events on more than 550 million devices across 2 trillion words on 35,000 topics. AI shows us in real-time which candidates saw the biggest lift or decline in viewings of favorable content about them based on online behavior in the seven days prior to, and seven days following, the debate. This is what we refer to as the Resonate Candidate Index. AI revealed a clear picture of where the polls are headed and who the American electorate really viewed as the winners and losers of the second debate.
Who moved the needle during the second democratic debates?
Cory Booker was a clear winner. Online engagement surrounding content related to him increased by 832% the five days following the debate. This isn’t much of a surprise, as many news outlets declared him the winner. However, this was a major turnaround from the first debate where online engagement related to him dropped 20%. Some outlets also declared Joe Biden a winner, but he came in 7th with a 260% increase in his online engagement post-debate. Bernie Sanders was also declared a winner by some, but according to our data, his online engagement was down by 70%, a clear indicator of his persistently sluggish polling numbers. Candidates who placed behind Booker were Amy Klobuchar, with a 761% increase, Kamala Harris with a 365% increase, Beto O’Rourke with a 283% increase and Bill de Blasio with a 278% increase. Amy Klobuchar has shown a massive comeback, jumping from just 22% online engagement following the first debate.
A breakdown of the biggest post-debate increases in online content engagement is below:
How did the debate affect engagement?
We ranked the candidates as far as pre-debate and post-debate engagement, shown below, which is a picture of the changes that took place over the two-night showdown:
Cory Booker and Amy Klobuchar were big post-debate winners, while Kamala Harris, Joe Biden and Marianne Williamson stayed strong throughout. Bernie Sanders, Tim Ryan, John Delaney and Michael Bennet all lost major engagement after the debate.
So, how has this played out? In the weeks following the debate, the national profile of Kamala Harris and Joe Biden remained at a high level, and there’s been a drop off in coverage of Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren. John Hickenlooper, who recently left the race, dropped down to the bottom of the pack.
Stay with Resonate throughout the 2020 election season for real-time, AI-driven updates on the Resonate Candidate Index. Our next post-debate engagement check-in will be seven days following the next democratic debates in September. AI-driven predictive analytics help campaigns discover voter segments that the traditional voter file and third-party data analysis could never find.
