Insights from Clinton/Trump

Twitter Sentiment Analysis

Dillon Maher
Public Relations BA/Minor in Civic Engagement & Responsibility
Illinois State University
Tweet Sentiment Comparison Between
Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump
Because this data surrounded presidential debates in which Clinton
and Trump were the only participants, the data displays a head-to-
head comparison of the two major-party candidates
Data sentiment coded as other or coded as being about Gary
Johnson, Jill Stein, a combination of candidates, or about one of the
candidates has been omitted to give a clearer picture of how the
presidential debates affected sentiment shared on Twitter
Proportional Tweet Breakdown, Sept. 25
Before First Debate

Favorable Clinton Unfavorable Clinton Favorable Trump Unfavorable Trump

Proportional Tweet Breakdown, Sept. 26
First Debate

Favorable Clinton Unfavorable Clinton Favorable Trump Unfavorable Trump

Proportional Tweet Breakdown, Sept. 27
After First Debate

Favorable Clinton Unfavorable Clinton Favorable Trump Unfavorable Trump

Proportional Tweet Breakdown, Oct. 10
Second Debate

Favorable Clinton Unfavorable Clinton Favorable Trump Unfavorable Trump

Sentiment Over Time in Percent of Total Tweets
40%

35%

30%

25%

20%

15%

10%

5%

0%
Before Debate 1 Debate 1 After Debate 1 Debate 2
Percent Pro Clinton Percent Con Clinton Percent Pro Trump Percent Con Trump
Sentiment Over Time in Volume of
Total Major-Party-Candidate Tweets

Before Debate 1 Debate 1 After Debate 1 Debate 2

Percent Pro Clinton Percent Con Clinton Percent Pro Trump Percent Con Trump
Sentiment for Either Major-Party-Candidate
80.00%

70.00%

60.00%

50.00%

40.00%

30.00%

20.00%

10.00%

0.00%

Before Debate 1 After Debate Debate 2

Debate 1 1
Overall Positive Sentiment: Overall Positive Sentiment:
Overall Negative Sentiment: Overall Negative Sentiment:
Who won the Debates?
By comparing the volume of Favorable Clinton/Unfavorable Trump with Favorable
Trump/Unfavorable Clinton surrounding the debates to date, we can get a glimpse
of what Twitter users in swing counties think about who won the debate.
Sentiment Surrounding Debates

Debate 1 Debate 2

Clinton Win Trump Win Clinton Win Trump Win

Observations
The overall volume of tweets about Trump (positive or negative) was
greater than the volume of tweets about Clinton
Inference: As a political outside, Trump is more buzzworthy
Trump took a hit after both debates, but the first one hit him harder
Trump performed better in Debate 2; this is reflected in CNN post-debate
polling data and our data surrounding the two debates
Debate result breakdown reflects the scientific CNN polls
Both our data and CNN data would suggest that Clinton won both debates,
but with a more narrow margin in Debate 2 than in Debate 1.
There is more overall negative talk about candidates
This is reflective of national polling data as well
This has also maintained fairly consistent