February 01, 2008
Eventful Reveals Key Voter Demographic Insights Ahead of Super Tuesday
Clinton Leads Among Female Voters, Obama and McCain Lead Among Young Voters
SAN DIEGO--With ‘Super Tuesday’ contests around the corner, Eventful, the leading global events Web site, has today revealed key demographic trends related to youth and female support for the leading candidates, based on data from Eventful’s ‘Demand’ service.
With tight races throughout the ‘Super Tuesday’ states, Eventful reports that the campaigns are aggressively using online communities to reach young supporters and turn out every last vote through sites such as Eventful, MySpace and Facebook. Eventful’s tools have the advantage of enabling geographically targeted outreach to highly influential, ardent supporters at the local level.
Eventful also reports a surge in Demands for several of the top remaining candidates, based on the towns and cities that Eventful users want them to visit on the campaign trail. Several leading presidential candidates are using Eventful’s online tools to achieve grass-roots participation by supporters in local campaign events throughout the country.
In California, where polls show Sen. Hillary Clinton ahead of Sen. Barack Obama, Obama has more than 8,500 supporters using Eventful to demand an appearance by him in their town, far out-pacing Clinton (1,908). This disparity is mirrored throughout other states, including Illinois, Obama’s home state and a projected win for the Senator, and more tightly contested states such as Missouri. However, while Obama has been the most demanded performer on Eventful for most of January, Clinton appears to be gaining ground, moving on to Eventful’s hottest list of ‘Demands’ in recent weeks.
Of the remaining top Republican contenders, Mike Huckabee has more Demands in nearly all states than Sen. John McCain and Mitt Romney. While Huckabee dominates Demands in the southern ‘Super Tuesday’ states, John McCain supporter numbers are much closer in the Northeast.
Several of the remaining candidates, including Obama and Huckabee, have been using their large supporter base and Eventful’s email contact system to increase turnout and awareness for campaign appearances in the lead-up to Tuesday’s contest.
“The Internet is proving to be a powerful tool for candidates to engage young voters in the political process,” said Jordan Glazier, CEO at Eventful. “We’re really pleased that voters and the campaigns are discovering Eventful as an integral part of their grass-roots organization.”
Eventful’s unique ability to collect demographic information, such as location, age and gender, reveals interesting trends in the race for the Democratic nomination since the start of primary season.
Over 60% of Obama’s demanders are in the young voter block of 18-25 years old, with an average age of 26.7 years. These statistics reflect exit polls in early primary states, where Obama has dominated the youth vote, and were a major contributory factor in his Iowa victory. According to Eventful’s data however, Clinton appears to do well with youth voters as well, with an average Eventful Demander age of 29 years old and nearly 40% of her demanders between 18-25 years old.
Another major voting block, and a contributor to Clinton’s victory in New Hampshire, is the female vote. Both Obama and Clinton have targeted these groups heavily. Hillary appears to have broad appeal among women on the Internet, with over 70% of her demanders being female. However, Obama appears to be making strides in this area, where over 60% of his 13,000 demanders since the start of the primary season are female. This parallels a closing gap among the female voter block after the South Carolina primary, where Clinton and Obama nearly split the vote.
Among the major Republican candidates, the gender support on Eventful is split fairly evenly, while Huckabee skews much older than his competitors with an average demander age of 35.6, compared to 30.5 for Romney and 27.1 for McCain.
Eventful Demand is a free online service that empowers supporters to lobby for political figures to come and speak in their local town. Using Eventful, candidates can track where they are most in Demand, schedule appearances based on this data and also communicate directly with the Demanders via email. Eventful Demand has transformed the way audiences interact with public figures and performers, empowering them to directly influence where events take place. Eventful’s viral tools make it easy for campaigns and supporters to spread the word by including links and widgets in blogs, MySpace pages, Facebook groups and other social networking sites.
About Eventful Inc.
San Diego based Eventful, Inc., operates Eventful.com, the leading events Web site, which enables its community of users to discover, promote, share and create events throughout the world. Eventful users select from nearly 4 million events taking place in local markets throughout the world, from concerts and sports to singles events and political rallies. Eventful’s Demand service enables users to influence where their favorite performers and candidates appear by creating viral grass-roots campaigns to “Demand” them in their town.
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CONTACT:
LEWIS PR for Eventful
Sharon Howell, 415-992-4400
eventful@lewispr.com
Posted by brian at February 1, 2008 08:00 AM