Youtube video metrics from official candidate channels provides insights into the general support for and interest in the respective candidate. We can follow such metrics as likes, dislikes, and comments to determine which candidate is attracting more implied support.
We have previously covered this topic, please refer here.
In our last update on this topic on September 14th, we stated:
- Youtube metrics for the official candidate channels show that Trump completely overwhelms Biden. We see similar trends when looking at other alt data sources, namely that Trump’s supporters are far more enthusiastic. In a normal election, this would equate to Trump having a significant electoral advantage.
These trends have continued in the second half of September. An updated chart using data of videos created from September 15 to today is presented next.
Chart 1: Youtube Statistics for Donald J Trump and Joe Biden Official Channels, Data from Videos Appearing on their respective Channels from September 15, 2020 to September 23, 2020
Source: Youtube and ZettaCap
It would be difficult to paint an optimistic picture of Biden’s performance by looking at the highlighted Youtube data. Biden’s likes and comments are meager while dislikes are higher than those of Trump. These relative metrics are extremely similar to those we saw in the first two weeks of September. For specific figures, refer to the following.
Table 1: Youtube Statistics for Donald J Trump and Joe Biden Official Channels, Data from Videos Appearing on their respective Channels from September 15, 2020 to September 23, 2020
Source: Youtube and ZettaCap
The obvious interpretation of these datapoints is that Trump’s base is more enthusiastic by a wide margin.
We have seen similar trends in other alternative data sources, some of which we have presented on this site.
We do not see an inversion to this overall trend due to its consistency and to the fact that election-day is fast approaching.
There is a possibility that the upcoming debates could impact the level of enthusiasm and we will watch this carefully, but as of today it looks unlikely to be significant enough to invert the current trends.
Barring a dramatic shift, it looks like for the 2020 election Republicans have the enthusiasm advantage.