Republicans Outnumber Democrats Online
A new Nielsen/NetRatings report finds that Republicans outnumber Democrats online. They found that 36.6 percent of U.S. adults online are Republicans, 30.8 percent are Democrats and 17.3 percent are Independents.
Here’s the breakdown of the sites with the highest concentrations of each:
Nothing particularly noteworthy here; you’d expect sites aimed at conservatives to attract mostly Republicans and sites targeting African Americans to have mostly Democrats in its audience. More interesting would be the reverse breakdown: Which sites do Republicans and Democrats, respectively, mostly visit?
Nielsen/NetRatings analyst Ken Cassar says, “The fact that the online population is more heavily composed of Republicans than Democrats is principally a function of the Republican party’s higher composition within the overall electorate.” That’s not only not demonstrable through this survey but almost certainly untrue. Indeed, he himself points to the far more logical explanation: “This is exacerbated by the fact that online penetration continues to be deeper among affluent households, which have historically skewed Republican.”
The political leaning numbers sure seem to track other sources (32.5% conservative/very conservative, 52.3% moderate and 19.8% liberal/very liberal).