What Data Tells Us About the 2016 Presidential Election

American flag against cloudy sky

Throughout the presidential campaigns, we’ve analyzed media coverage of the election to try to understand  what the data shows when it comes Trump vs. Clinton.  Along the way, we’ve asked if there really is a  correlation between coverage of a candidate and other factors, such as page views and poll numbers.

Read on for  an overview of what we found in our 2016 election media data analysis.

The Scale: Election Media Coverage  is Massive

Our data scientists analyzed over 2.8  billion page views from more than 300 media organizations beginning on November 2, 2015. Donald Trump recevied far higher coverage than any other candidate.

Here’s pageview  volume by day:

Parse.ly election data for article volume
Election data for all candidates showing total pageview volume by day.

Initially, data indicated that readers were more interested in stories about Clinton.  Between November 2015 and May 2016, an article on Hillary Clinton received six percent more page views than an article on Donald Trump.

Parse.ly election data showing page views per article
Election data for all candidates showing page views per article.

Starting in June however, articles featuring Trump quickly took over both in volume and views per article.

Clinton vs. Trump pageviews per article data on the Election Day.
Clinton vs. Trump pageviews per article data on the Election Day.

All in all, the total volume of Trump/Clinton news has massively surpassed any other topic across our entire network.

Trump and Clinton media coverage
Total volume of election coverage featuring Clinton or Trump.

Election Data in the News

What else has the data shown? Check out these discussions sparked by election data on the Parse.ly blog and around the web. You can also manipulate the data yourself through the election dashboard.

In the News:

On the Parse.ly Blog: