In this episode of the Fanalytics podcast, Mike Lewis from Emory University delves into the concept of political fandom, using the upcoming 2024 election contest between Donald Trump and Kamala Harris as a case study. The discussion covers the role of narratives, the impact of media, and the importance of core metrics like fandom in predicting election outcomes. Lewis highlights the differences in fan and anti-fan rates between the candidates across various demographics, including gender, generation, race, and cultural segments. He also discusses the potential for a highly negative and closely contested election, underlining the volatility and unpredictability of modern political campaigns.
00:00 Introduction to Political Fandom
00:11 The Role of Narratives in Politics
00:33 Current Political Landscape: Trump vs. Harris
00:41 Understanding Political Fandom Metrics
03:06 Impact of Negative Advertising
05:21 Historical Context of Political Fandom
07:35 Fandom Trends Across Demographics
10:37 Gender and Political Fandom
13:24 Generational Perspectives on Candidates
15:16 Racial Dynamics in Political Fandom
17:03 Cultural Segments: Swifties vs. Baseball Fans
20:00 Summary and Predictions for 2024 Election
26:27 Conclusion and Further Resources
Welcome to the Fanalytics podcast. This is Mike Lewis from Emory university. Today's episode is about political fandom and the contest between Donald Trump and Kamala Harris. Like other categories. Political fandom, rest on a foundation in narratives. And politics has an entire wing of media, an endless campaign operatives, continually creating and redefining these narratives. And politics has an amazing. Set of stories this summer, the Biden. Debate collapse.
The Trump assassination attempt. Now Biden's withdrawal and Harris's Ascension. We've got less than a hundred days before the election. So it's prime time for politics, at least until the NFL gets serious in a couple of weeks.
Political fandom is an underappreciated metric and politics. Paul's focus on current preference of likely or registered voters. And that's the right thing to do for prediction at any given moment. But a hundred days out we're better served with something that's more fundamental. For example, right now, Harris is new and there's an astonishing, positive media environment. But we got to dismiss this kind of noise to really understand what's going on.
So, as an example, this past weekend, there were 200 to 500 golf carts, depending on reports, rallying for Harris in the villages. So a clear display, a fandom of enthusiasm. But the reality is there might be 85,000 golf carts in the villages. So we're actually talking about 0.2 to 0.6% of the golf cart. It's in the village is showing up.
This became a news story and trended on social. But in some ways it starts to feel like propaganda. Trump in contrast. Drew 8,000 people to a rally in St. Cloud Minnesota. Now, Minnesota is a tough state for Republicans as they have not wanted since 1972.
The point being that we've got this media environment. That shapes the data and the facts in very specific ways. So to really predict what's going to happen in less than a hundred days. We want to focus on. Core metrics that are really capture. The amount of love and the amount of clothing for the different candidates.
The one I like to use is fandom. I think fandom is an absolutely critical metric. Because fandom captures a bunch of things that really matter to voters. It captures likeability. It captures aspiration. It captures passion. And really critically it captures something about identity.
Now identity matters. Because. And what I mean by identity is that the voter or the prospective voter starts to identify and become part of the candidates team. So identify identity, and this is true. Just as in sports. So if the candidate wins, the voter feels like they won. If the candidate loses the individual who voted for them, feels like they've suffered a defeat. Now, this type of identity is really critical for how campaigns play out. Because it means that negative advertising. If I'm a partisan, if I love Donald Trump. And the Harris campaign attacks Trump with a negative ad.
I will tend to feel like I'm being attacked. So if they go after Trump for being a criminal or a fraudster that ends up being an attack on the Trump enthusiast or the Trump fan. Now negative advertising in these modern campaigns is probably most effective in terms of motivating the anti fans. Right? So the anti fans are the people that. Hate Harris or they hate Trump in which case?
The negative advertising. And the thing about. An anti-fashion is that maybe there's someone that isn't going to show up to vote. Unlike the core fan. But with negative advertising, what happens is you start to prime, the threats. Right. So to the Trump voter. They might be afraid of. They might be afraid of increased immigration.
So you, you focus on that. The Harris voter, maybe it's a woman worried about reproductive rights rights. So you frame the negative in terms of trumping anti-woman. Just enough to get these people to actually come out and vote. So negative advertising ends up being a really powerful for anti fans, it's often about using fear to prime turnout. The classic negative ad. In all of politics is the Daisy ad attacking Barry Goldwater.
So this goes back to the Lyndon Johnson Barry Goldwater campaign. The ad is relatively simple. It's a little girl. Polling pedals off of a date, Daisy, while in the background. A thermonuclear explosion is going off. So you think about how this actually works. It's an incredibly negative ad where you're essentially priming people, people that are a little bit iffy or really disliked Goldwater. That they are under direct threat of nuclear war, unless they come out to vote for, uh, for Lyndon Johnson.
Okay. So political fandom is important because it dictates why we see such negative campaigns. And the strategies we see, uh, candidates adopting. But from a bigger picture, I think when we take a step back and just even look over the last couple of decades, Fan base politics. Political fandom has been perhaps the major trend that is defining how our elections work.
You can go back to the hope and change campaign of Barack Obama. I believe he had filled up football stadiums. We've got AOC dancing on stage. We have, um, all sorts of we mag rallies with Donald Trump. Uh, we have the Bernie bros notably as, as a group, a fan group that. That showed out in force. Now, one of the things that I think is notable about all this and goes against the prevailing media narrative, is that. We tend to see more of these fandom based political movements on the left than on the right now.
I think there's a real logic for it.
So many of the democratic or progressive. Uh, voting blocks have been defined as vulnerable or marginalized populations or oppressed populations. Now the word oppressed is really important here. Because of a group is oppressed. It implies that someone is victimizing that group. If someone's victimizing their group, then that group needs a defender.
That group needs a hero and that's prime material for when political fandom is going to exist. I think political Phantom is a little bit different from the right wing. The conservative or traditionalist voting blocks. I tend to be more interested in preservation rather than change. So you tend not to see a lot of political fandom on the right now, the notable. Uh, exception to this is of course, Donald Trump, who has the greatest political fandom across the entire political spectrum.
But outside of Trump, there's very few Republicans that inspire true.
This brings us to. Trump vs Harris and the 2024 contest. Now we're a hundred days out. So looking at polls, looking at snapshots is not going to be that helpful. We want to look at something more fundamental. So one of the things I do as a professor is I run an annual survey on sports and cultural fandom.
I call it the next generation survey as part of this survey. Um, and then the 2024 survey national sample racially representative. Uh, surveyed. 2050, some folks split evenly across. Approximately evenly across the gen Z millennials, gen X. And baby boomers. As part of this survey. I ask about 50 to 60 celebrities.
So I ask respondents, how much of a fan are you about LeBron James Wayne, Gretzky Taylor swift. This year because of the political season. I also included several political figures, including, uh, Donald Trump, Kamala Harris, Joe Biden, RFK, and, and some of the early potential VP candidates for Trump. Now the way I assess fandom and that for the numbers that follow for the charts of the follow-up. Uh, is to say if the respondent said they were a six or seven on the fandom scale, they're a fan. And they said one or two, I categorize them as an anti fan.
Now we can debate this. But I think it's a reasonably good approximate approximation.
Now there are going to be a bunch of numbers. So as I go through this discussion, you can always find the full report, the full numbers. In the articles I'm going to post on my sub stack. That's Fanalytics dot sub stack.com. And you can always go to my online home fandom analytics.com. Which will supply the links to the podcast, to the sub stack, all these good things. So the first analysis we want to look at is just the fandom in anti-fascism rates for Trump and for Harris for the entire population. So the group of 2000 and I think 53 respondents. Looking at the fandom rates. Trump enjoys a plus six advantage.
So 27% of the samples of their Donald Trump fans compared to only 21% for Kamala Harris. On the anti-fascism side and this is maybe our first little surprise. Trump also has an advantage with a plus 1% point advantage in terms of anti-fascism. So we have slightly less anti-fascists. Now that part does not fit the prevalent narrative out there that Trump has just massive negatives.
The only other thing to note in terms of the raw fandom and anti-fascism numbers. Is that anti-fascism is much more common for politicians that an Advantum is for Trump. It's 27% fans, 41%. Antifascists for Harris, 21% fans. And more than double 43%. Anti-fascists. In some ways, this isn't surprising.
Politicians are generally disliked by Americans. So it's much easier for them to inspire hate than it is for them to inspire. Uh, pure passion and admiration.
The second set of numbers. Involved breaking the population down into males versus females. Okay. So as, as we might expect, Yeah. Like I think the conventional wisdom is the Trump will have an advantage with the male subjects. And Harris will do better with the female subjects. In terms of the fandom rate. Trump has 30, a 31% fandom rate around amongst male respondents. Um, compared to 24% for Harris.
So Trump plus seven. With male subjects with, with, with men. Uh, with the females though. And again, this is where this stuff gets a little surprising and fairly informative. Females Trump leaves 23% to 20 to 19%. So a four point advantage. Okay, this is interesting. Women. 10 not to like Kamala Harris. In terms of inspiring Phantom.
She may have some fans out there. But it's probably just this narrow group of hyper-partisan liberals in terms of the overall population. She doesn't do that. Well, she inspires less fandom than Donald Trump. The anti-fascism side is where this again becomes very powerful. 37% of males are anti-Trump fans, but 42% are anti Harris fans. So male respondents, they like Harris less, but they also dislike her quite a bit more. Um, for the female side, and this is the big number, right?
This is kind of the key takeaway. 48% of female respondents were anti-Trump fans. So this is the wa the first place in the data where we actually see a Harris advantage, but it's not that big of an advantage. 45% of the female respondents weren't anti-fat fans of Harris. So. There it's a mixed story. Uh, Trump really has dangerously high anti-fascism or hate numbers. With the female population. But Harris is not that far ahead.
So a lot of what we're seeing right now in terms of media, praise and social media praise for Harris. This may not be stuff that we need to take all that seriously. Cause again, It's being generated by folks that are a narrow group of folks that are very pro Harris though. The other thing that are, that we get as a clear takeaway from this. Is this our first indication that you're going to see identity focused, negative advertising Trump's numbers are so negative 48% anti-fascism amongst females that the Harris campaign. Is going to need to paint Trump as a massage dentist to. Paint Trump as a threat to women.
The third set of numbers. I want to look at. Is related to one part of one part of demographics, specifically generation Z perspectives on the candidates. I want to focus just on gen Z, because there was so much concern about Biden's age. And where it shows up in the data. The most is actually with gen Z. Now in terms of fandom rates.
And again, a little bit of a surprise. Trump has a 24% fandom rate in gen Z, which is six points higher than Harris. Okay. So it's 24 to 18% in terms of fandom. But Biden. Biden is actually trails Trump by 8%. So you, you begin to see where they were really seeing the problems in terms of which voting segments. In terms of anti fandom, it's pretty close. So Trump has a 39% anti-fascism rate with generation Z. Whereas Harris has a 40%. So plus one to Trump. But this is the big news.
This is the big takeaway. The big story from the data. If you look at Biden's numbers, If you look at Biden's numbers. Trump has a six point advantage in terms of anti fandom. So Biden's weaknesses. The perception that he is too old for president was really biting hard. At the youngest. At the youngest demographic segment of voters.
So we were starting to build a story. Right. So Harris has a small advantage with women in terms of anti fandom. Uh, she's a significant improvement with the younger voters relative to Biden. So you start to see where, and what's going to be a close election. Where she starts to have a little bit of an advantage here in a little bit of an advantage there, and it makes her a much more viable.
The fourth set of analyses of numbers. Is the third rail of American politics and that's looking at fandom and anti-fascism from a racial angle now. Many of our recent elections races. It's the elephant in the room, right? It's the, it's the thing that's driving most of the narrative, but it's something that can barely be discussed when you break the population down into. White versus non-white segments.
You see really dramatic differences in terms of fandom and anti fandom. For whites. Trump has a 14 point advantage in fandom. And a 10 point advantage in anti-fascism when you go to Harris or rather when you go to nonwhites, Harris is up 10 points in terms of fandom. And 17 points. In anti-fascism. So Trump has. Incredibly high anti-fascism in the nonwhite category. Whereas Harris has relatively low.
So this is where you really see the shape of the electorate and why we are absolutely going to be in for a lot of negative campaigning. The nonwhite groups and going back to the female anti fandom rates for Trump. These oppressed groups, these marginalized groups. Are very much geared towards voting on identity. And this is where negative advertising can be really powerful. When you portray the candidate.
In this case, Donald Trump is being a threat to their identity. This is where negative advertising actually has a lot of power to motivate people. And in particular to motivate turnout.
The last set of numbers and actually there's two sets of numbers in this part. Involves looking at different cultural segments. So I've chosen two cultural segments. One is fans of Taylor swift, the Swifties and the other is fans of baseball. Major league baseball fans. Now these are interesting segments, right?
Because the Swifties tend to skew younger, tend to skew more female. But more importantly, these are people that are very much immersed in. Uh, current popular culture, baseball fans tend to skew a little bit older. Definitely more male. And baseball is the most traditional of all the games. Okay. So first we look at the Taylor swift numbers. This is again, a place where Kamala Harris enjoy significant advantages. She has a plus 9% advantage in, in fans and a, an enormous plus 16%. Advantage in anti-fascism.
So Donald Trump has a lot of hate within the Swifty group, whereas Kamala Harris does not. So again, you start to see. And this is, this is more nuanced than just looking at the female segment or the racial minority segment. You get a sense of how this campaign is going to go. Taylor swift fans. Younger female immersed in popular culture. So celebrity appeals, painting Trump as a sexist. Challenging the GOP's position on reproductive rights. These are going to be the key messages and again, very negatively oriented messages.
Baseball fans, unsurprisingly, the pattern reverses, but it is not as extreme as in the case of, of the Swifties. Trump has an 8% point advantage in fandom. And a seven point percentage advantage in anti fandom. So Trump has good deal. A good amount, more fans than Harris does amongst baseball fans, any, he has much less. Much less hatred.
Now it's not as extreme as with the Swifties. Now this brings up. An interesting side note in terms of how elections work and the role of the modern culture.
In some ways the Swifties is a. It's a better place to have an advantage, right? The culture seems to allow celebrities, progressive celebrities to make very dramatic appeals and to say very negative things about Republican candidates. Uh, Taylor swift can come out and denounce Donald Trump. And there was very little fear of blow back, but major league baseball. We'll always has always, and all the major sports are much more in a, in the realm of trying to be inclusive and grow their markets.
So it's interesting. Uh, Taylor swift has very little qualms about potentially offending Republicans. Whereas the cultural entities. Where people like Donald Trump has an advantage, tend to play these things very neutral.
All right. So to sum all this up, what. What do we get out of this? The numbers suggest that Donald Trump has some advantages in terms of core support. And the two candidates are relatively, even in let's call it core negativity or anti fandom. Which means that Trump has a. A larger base of resilience, support, resilient support. Um, But, and in terms of the voting blocks, that will. Never consider the other side. They are again, relatively equal. Now this, this pattern.
We can really draw two kind of key implications from all this. Uh, predictions in terms of where this race is going to go. Number one in terms of the tone of the race. We are in for something truly nasty. Both candidates have much larger negatives and positives, much more anti-fascism than fandom. So, this is a situation where negative advertising is likely going to be the most effective way forward.
So that's what we're going to see. The other thing you got to realize is the structure of the American electorate at this point. As America has become more diverse. What inevitably happens is you have more identity based voting segments. Okay, now this, this might sound like a, an attack on diversity, but this is truly just the reality of the situation. People felt more based on identity than they do on ideology.
So as a society becomes more diverse, you're going to see more voting that is based on identity racial identity. Maybe you can prime. So you're basing, voting on gender. Diversity in the, in the realm of elections. Will inevitably breed more conflict. So we're going to see a very nasty. Election. Now, given the relative sizes of the voting segments, we're also going to see a very close election. If you plot the, if you plot. Let's say going back to 1972. And just look at the relative margins of victory in the presidential elections from 1972 to 2020. What you see as a tr is an obvious pattern of shrinking margins. So Nixon won by something like 25 points.
Reagan won by something like 20 points steadily. The margins have ticked down. This is very much a function of the population. No longer having one really significant segment, let's say 80, 85% white voters to now maybe we're down to 60% of white voters. And so you end up with much more balance. And what, where this is matters is that a lot of our electoral results are basically baked in. We are. It currently, basically at the point where Democrats will win the popular vote with 51 or 52 or 53%, Republicans can be more competitive in the electoral college. But that basic structure. Is is, is almost defined before we select the candidates.
So this election. Will undoubtedly be very close. It truly doesn't matter who the candidates are on the R side or the D side, these base voting rates of, again, let's say 52 Democrat versus 48 Republican. That's our starting point. The quality of the candidate. The quality of the campaign is what's going to dictate. Not so much how the, how the, the popular vote is going to go, but how the electoral vote is going to go. Um, so my view on this. Thinking about the structure of the American electorate. How this is basically baked into a very close election. And then looking at the candidates, relative strengths and weaknesses in terms of fandom.
My gas is that we're my guess is that we're going to see. A very tight race. In terms of the popular vote, Democrats probably win the popular vote. But Trump with some edges in terms of core support and an enthusiasm probably wins the electoral college.
That's the prediction. But. The reality is we're living through incredibly volatile times. In 2020. We had BLM protests. We had COVID lockdowns that led to the changing of the election rules. Just in this past couple of, you know, just in the course of this last summer, we've had an assassination attempt. We've had someone drop out. Ah, an incumbent dropout of the, the campaign. So we are living through incredibly volatile times. There is no reason to think that we are not due for another.
We used to talk about October surprises. Now we've got June surprises and July surprises. It seems extremely likely to me that there's going to be some more plot twists and that's, you know, that's the reason why I think electorial forecasting is a little bit foolhardy at this point. Most of the prognosticators, the folks that predict elections. They tend to use data going back to let's say the 1950s or the 1960s. We no longer live in that world of an America that is racially. Uh, homogeneous. Where, um, traditional values are very much in play where it's a largely Christian country. We are in a very different environment in 2024 than we were in 1972. Uh, we are also in an immediate environment. That almost tends to amplify crises and social unrest.
So I think any prediction has got to be contingent on. Essentially there being no dramatic surprise. Look, we had BLM in 2020. Maybe we have a series of Palestinian protests. That you know, with, with Antifa there creates similar social turmoil. There's a lot of unknown stall this. So it's, it's a little bit foolhardy to make a prediction, but I'll, I'll put it out there.
The given the base rates of enthusiasm, fandom and antipathy anti-fascism Trump probably wins a close one.
And we'll close for now. I think this episode.
I think political fandom. Particularly during a presidential campaign is a tremendously. Interesting thing to study, uh, in, uh, It's not just thinking about sports fans for teens, where preferences are, are really locked in based on where you live. There's a lot more complexity. The identity factors are incredibly important. The other thing about this episode is I referenced a lot of numbers.
I think that can be a little bit frustrating. And in particular, if you're doing this as an audio format, if you want to look at the raw numbers, sort of the, the longer form write-ups of this. I really recommend going to my sub stack, which is Fanalytics dot sub stack.com. Or you can always go to the website, my home on online, which is fandom analytics.com, where there will be links to of course everything.
And the other thing. If you're interested and I've been doing more experimentation with relatively short form pieces. So actually been publishing a lot on Tik TOK and YouTube shorts. Uh, you can find me on YouTube shorts at, at Fanalytics Mike. And on Tik TOK at Fanalytics podcast. Uh, you know, please check these things out and talk to you guys next week.