Are the Polls Wrong Again? A look at the Michigan 2018 Democratic Primaries

By: Prithvi Joshi and Linh Phan

According to the latest Target-Insyght poll (June 24-26, 2018), the Michigan Gubernatorial Democratic Primary race appears to be anything but nail-biting. Candidate Gretchen Whitmer leads fellow candidates Shri Thanedar and Abdul El-Sayed by 21 and 23 percentage points, respectively. Well outside the margin of error, this primary should theoretically be a shoo-in for Whitmer. However, looking back at the polls for the 2016 election, and more recently New York’s 14th congressional district, it appears that the polls don’t tell the whole story.

Using Infey’s Atlas Social Media Analysis Platform, we analyzed social media posts and their emotional sentiment related to all 3 candidates for the 6-month period ending July 10th, 2018. Looking at the buzz surrounding the three candidates, we see that Abdul El-Sayed is getting the most traction in social-media with around 34,000 total posts on Blogs, Facebook Forums, Microblogs, Twitter, and Tumblr. Gretchen Whitmer comes in second with 23,000 total posts and Shri Thanedar lags behind with 15,000 posts.

Surprisingly the data doesn’t seem to correlate with the results of the election polls. Of El-Sayed’s 34k posts, 50% are positive and 49% are negative. In contrast, Whitmer’s posts are 35% positive and 61% negative, while Thanedar’s are 41% positive and 57% negative. It’s clear that El-Sayed has the highest percentage of social media positivity amongst the three candidates.

The gender-based differences are particularly striking. A whopping 76% of postings by females indicate a negative sentiment about Whitmer, with only 24% indicating a positive sentiment. In contrast, El-Sayed has a 59% positive sentiment in posts by females. Thanedar is in the middle with 43% positive sentiment among females. The differences in posts by males are not as stark, although Whitmer attracts higher negative sentiment at 58%, compared to El-Sayed’s 53%.

Textual analysis of the social media posts indicates that the most frequent keywords associated with the candidates are wildly different. Unsurprisingly, the most frequent words associated with El-Sayed are all centered around his religion and include “Muslim Student”, “Muslim Brotherhood”, “Muslim Student Association”, and “Muslim”. His professional qualifications are rarely mentioned in posts. The keywords related to Thanedar are more focused on his business decisions regarding product testing on animals and include “Monkeys”, “Shuttered Testing Lab”, and “Sanctuaries”, along with “Bernie Branded Candidacy”. On the other hand, the most frequently associated words with Whitmer are “Donald Trump” and “Rick Snyder”, neither of which have anything to do with her individual identity or her policy positions, but only reflect potential dissatisfaction with Republicans.

Emotional content analysis reveals that 10% of social media posts about El-Sayed invoke feelings of trust while 2.2% invoke disgust. In comparison only 3.1% of posts about Whitmer indicate trust and 0.1% of post indicate disgust. Thanedar invokes trust in 5.3% and disgust in 0.2% of posts. Although El-Sayed is trusted more, his high disgust percentage could be indicative of the primacy of his religious identity to the people posting on social media. Interestingly, the word “Hindu” rarely makes an appearance for Thanedar.

This indicates that there is more to this race than the polls suggest (echoes of November 2016 come to mind). Whitmer may be facing a more uphill battle. She is lagging far behind El-Sayed in number of posts. She trails both Thanedar and El-Sayed in male support. Perhaps most worrisome for the Whitmer campaign, she is averaging an abysmal 24% female positive sentiment, almost as low as Donald Trump’s approval rating among Hispanic voters!

The general apathy towards Whitmer is even more pronounced when looking at the keywords associated with her. While it is obviously not ideal for either El-Sayed or Thanedar when people associate them with the Muslim Brotherhood or Monkeys respectively, Whitmer seems to have no identity at all. The most common keywords associated with Whitmer are Donald Trump and Rick Snyder, implying that people are not focusing on Whitmer, and only mention her with respect to her chances at beating the Republicans who previously won the Michigan vote.

Social media data is showing that the grassroots campaign of El-Sayed is in full swing, with endorsements from “People for Bernie Sanders” and “Millennials for Revolution”. El-Sayed may pull a Ocasio-Cortez in the Michigan Primaries on August 7th, unless Thanedar gets the monkey off his back!

Comparison of Candidates

Abdul El-Sayed Shri Thanedar Gretchen Whitmer Target-Insyght poll expected vote distribution 17% 19% 40% Total social media post count 34k 15k 23k Percent of posts with sentiment content 44% 39% 49% Percent of posts with positive sentiment 50% 41% 35% Percent of posts with negative sentiment 49% 57% 61% Percent of female posts with positive sentiment 59% 43% 24% Percent of female posts with negative sentiment 41% 57% 76% Percent of male posts with positive sentiment 47% 44% 42% Percent of male posts with negative sentiments 53% 56% 58% Percent of posts that express trust in candidate 10% 5.30% 3.10% Percent of posts that express disgust with candidate 2.20% 0.20% 0.10%

About the Authors:

Prithvi Joshi (prithvijoshi59@gmail.com) is a rising Junior in East Lansing High School. Linh Phan (linh.phan517@gmail.com) is a rising Senior in Okemos High School. The social media were accessed through the Infegy’s Atlas Social Media Analysis Platform (https://infegy.com/infegy-atlas), with guidance from Professor Roger Calantone and Professor Hang Nguyen in the Marketing Department, Broad School of Business, Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI.