Social media can tell a story during an election cycle that polls and surveys cannot.
Non-political “likes” were examined by Facebook and shared with BuzzFeed, showing things that people who like any House, Senate or gubernatorial candidate are interested in outside of politics.
Music that Democrats enjoy? The Beatles. Republicans like George Strait. The two political groups meet in the middle, sharing a like for Journey.
The full data sets show that Republicans are more inclined to enjoy country and rock music, such as the Zac Brown Band, Rascal Flatts and Sugarland.
Democrats more often like pop, like Lady Gaga and Michael Jackson, for example.
Both parties similarly like the Jersey Shore as a destination, James Patterson as an author, the Farmer’s Almanac for a book and “The Voice” for a television show.
Not surprisingly, Republicans were bigger fans of “Duck Dynasty” on A&E while Democrats leaned more toward “The Daily Show” and “The Colbert Report.”
The goal, Facebook’s data gurus told BuzzFeed, was to find “the pages that were most differentiating — that is, the pages that were liked by supporters of one party vs. the other — and those that were the most balanced.”
