Tag: Election 2016
Democratic Insiders: Trump Would Be Easiest GOP Candidate to Beat
60%
Of Democratic insiders in the first four nominating states say Donald Trump — who has mostly avoided tapping his vast personal fortune to fund his campaign — would be the easiest of the leading GOP candidates to defeat in the general election, Politico reports. “Roughly two out of three picked Rubio from a list of five leading GOP contenders — including Trump, Ben Carson, Ted Cruz and Jeb Bush — as the most formidable GOP hopeful due to his biography and political skill.”
Climate Change Is a Key Issue for Millennials
73%
Of millennials favor setting a goal to power America with at least 50% clean energy by the year 2030 (including 52% who are very favorable). The same poll, conducted by Hart Research Associates, found that “It is clear from our research not only that Millennials accept the science of climate change, but that a candidate who does not is at a disadvantage. We heard throughout our conversations with swing-state Millennials that climate denial is associated with stubborn or backward-looking thinking. And in our survey, 70% of Millennials say they would have major concerns (45% very major concerns) about a Republican candidate who disagrees with NASA, the US Military, and 97% of climate scientists that human activity is responsible for climate change, including 69% of independents and half (50%) of self-identified Republicans.”
2016 Could Lead to Major Political Realignment
On this all can agree: Strange happenings are afoot in the 2016 presidential cycle, the kind that leave experts scratching their heads. Donald Trump, Bernie Sanders, talk of a third-party run—we’ve never seen anything quite like it, right? … Except that we have. It happened in 1968, and if you are seeking precedents for this cycle, that year’s momentous presidential election is a good place to look. Here’s something further to consider: The 1968 race so shook up the political system that we’re still feeling its aftershocks today, more than a generation later. There is at least a chance this year’s race could become a similarly realigning campaign.
— The Wall Street Journal
Google Search Is Gaming the 2016 Election
And you thought it was the Koch brothers and super PACs that were calling the 2016 election. A new study reveals that Google’s search algorithms have the potential to sway undecided voters merely on the power of results rankings in Google search.
Google Search is having a detrimental affect on democracy by swaying undecided voters through its rankings, according to new research. A study by the American Institute for Behavioural Research and Technology found that Google has the power to shift voting preferences in the upcoming 2016 US elections by 20% or more through the results brought up by its secretive search algorithms, with Democrat candidate Hillary Clinton the most likely to benefit.
Through five experiments carried out in two countries, the study found that the search engine manipulation effect (SEME) could even be used to determine an election outcome if the proportion of undecided voters is calculated first. SEME is described as a “virtually invisible” form of social influence that is currently not subject to any specific regulations anywhere in the world.
“What the research shows is that when a candidate is ranked higher on Google, that shifts the votes of undecided voters towards that candidate because we’ve all learned they have such incredible trust in those rankings,” Robert Epstein, senior research psychologist at the American Institute for Behaviour Research and Technology and co-author of the study, told WhoWhatWhy. “Some 50% of all of our clicks go to the top two [search results] and [more than] 90% of all clicks go on the first page.
“Because moderate Republicans are so vulnerable to SEME, this makes Hillary Clinton virtually a shoo-in if the next election is close. If she has Google’s support, no one is going to be able to mess with her and it means Google will be able to shift all kinds of people in her direction – even a big chunk, possibly, of moderate Republicans.”
