Want to understand the 2020 Democratic primary? Stay off Twitter.

[brooklynite]

CNN

What's the point: If you go on social media platforms like Twitter (a second home for many journalists), you'd be shocked to learn that Biden was the frontrunner in the polling so far. Fans of other candidates (especially Sanders) make their presence known quite loudly and can leave you left wondering if the polling is missing something.

My advice: Be very, very careful in looking at Twitter or other social media to understand who is ahead or behind in the Democratic race. The dividing lines in the Democratic primary are such that they expose social media's weaknesses in accurately capturing the sentiment of the Democratic electorate.

Age is one of the biggest indicators in whom Democrats are choosing in the primary right now. Our CNN poll finds, for instance, that Sanders leads Biden by a 32% to 19% margin among those younger than 45. The same poll showed Biden with 36% and Sanders in third with 8% among those 45 years or older. (CNN's Iowa poll revealed a similarly large age divide.)

The problem is that social media skews young. I examined three Pew Research Center polls from 2016 and 2018 and looked at Democrats who said they used Twitter. On average, they were 18 points more likely to say they were under the age of 50 than the overall population who said they were Democrats in the same polling. That's a large enough difference to account for all of Biden's lead in CNN's polling.

[Socal31]

1. Twitter is a dumpster fire

[emulatorloo]

2. It is a good editorial, read it last night. Thanks for posting it here

[Stellar]

3. I guess most people just go where they feel welcome. nt

[Nanjeanne]

4. I use Twitter to see links to articles that I may have missed. I pay no attention to the

Hyper slamming of candidates by anonymous people or the misleading tweets with out of context quotes. I learn nothing from Twitter but I do find articles that I can read and then research truthfulness for myself. It’s simply a tool for me.

[Kurt V.]

5. i love Twitter. i follow ppl with varied points of view. it is what you make it.

if you don't watch cnn, your uninformed. if you do watch cnn, your misinformed. haha

[unc70]

6. DU skews older, too

Probably much older. DUers are heavily Boomers and older. But our other characteristics vary significantly from Dems in general.

[R B Garr]

7. "social media skews young". That fact, along with the fact

that you can easily vote multiple time in online polls, and we’ve seen how campaigns can coordinate to skew online polling. This is a good reminder that online results don’t mean much.

[Hortensis]

8. Sanders 8% with over-45s. Any idea what the average age is here?

Under-40s voted in significantly more grown-up numbers in the midterms than in 2016, but still unfortunately a lot less than the older age cohorts.

As for these data, the same proportion of younger generations as older are naturally conservative, as well as those tending to various political dysfunctions, so they're not all going to react to right-wing authoritarianism and growing persecutions as their nation needs them to.

Unfortunately, entire generations have now been raised soaked in Kool-Aid to believe that America's not worth saving as is. The hostile right teaches progressive liberal Democrats are the problem, and the hostile left teaches "corporatist" "establishment" Democrats instead, but to the same result in the end when Democratic and liberal indie voters are the defenders of democracy.

[Uncle Joe]

9. The problem is that the corporate media conglomerates skew corporate.

The problem is that social media skews young. I examined three Pew Research Center polls from 2016 and 2018 and looked at Democrats who said they used Twitter. On average, they were 18 points more likely to say they were under the age of 50 than the overall population who said they were Democrats in the same polling. That's a large enough difference to account for all of Biden's lead in CNN's polling.

Thanks for the thread brooklynite.

[redstatebluegirl]

10. I tried twitter for two weeks, it is a cesspool.