Presidential pickings

To put our new feature to the test, the Brandwatch React team uploaded text files from Trump and Biden campaign speeches (made between January and October 2020) to Consumer Research. We were then able to filter and categorize it alongside mentions from the candidates’ own official social accounts, general social media posts from the public, and news mentions.

We wanted to find out how big issues facing the US were discussed during the election across all these different sources.

Joe Biden

Looking at the time dedicated to issues in his speeches, we found that Joe Biden prioritized discussing the economy (29% of his issue-related speech conversation), Covid-19 (22%), and healthcare (16%).

On his owned social media, his priorities were slightly different. Mentions of coronavirus were most prominent (31% of his issue-related posts), followed by the economy (20%) and healthcare (13%).

But in social media posts from the public, there was a different order of importance. National security and foreign affairs was the most-discussed topic (16% of issue-related conversation), followed by Covid-19 (15%), the economy (13%), and law and order (13%).

The media also had different priorities when it came to discussing issues relating to Biden. While Covid-19 was the top issue (20%) and the economy came second (14%), race relations was the third most important topic (13%).

Donald Trump

In speeches over the 10 month period we studied, Trump’s issue-related conversation focused on national security (23%), the economy (22%), and law and order (13%).

But on his owned social media, the economy (27%), Covid-19 (19%), and national security and foreign affairs (14%) were the key priorities.

Unlike Biden, Trump’s owned social media had the same top priorities as social media posts from the public and news articles that were about him. Issue-related mentions of Trump from the public on social media and in online news prioritized Covid-19 (30% and 23% respectively), national security and foreign affairs (15% and 13% respectively), and the economy (13% and 15% respectively.)

It’s also worth pointing out that education was a hot topic in the media’s focus on Donald Trump, appearing as the fourth most mentioned topic (11% of issue-related mentions from news sites). This was not the case in any of the other sources.

Get more in-depth data

We were also able to find out how both candidates changed their messaging over time as they honed in on their respective key messages. You can check out the full analysis in our blog here.

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Thank you for reading this year

We’ll be back in your inbox on January 11 2021.

We hope you have a fantastic end to the year.

Stay safe,

Brandwatch React Team