Republicans Outnumber Democrats Online, According to Nielsen//NetRatings

[a kennedy]

"Moderate" Is the Most Common Political Leaning Among Web Users

NEW YORK, NY -- (MARKET WIRE) -- November 01, 2006 -- Nielsen//NetRatings (NASDAQ: NTRT), a global leader in Internet media and market research, announced today that 36.6 percent of U.S. adults online are Republicans, 30.8 percent are Democrats and 17.3 percent are Independents. With campaign Web sites becoming increasingly important to reaching the electorate, candidates need to keep their fingers on the political pulse of the Internet.

The Web site with the highest concentration of Republicans was RushLimbaugh.com, with an 84.8 percent Republican audience (see Table 1). NewsMax.com and Bill O'Reilly.com ranked No. 2 and 3, with audiences that were 65.4 percent Republican. The Drudge Report and Salt Lake Tribune rounded out the top five Republican sites with 59.0 and 57.9 composition percent.

Among Democrats, the top three sites were BlackAmericaWeb.com, AOL BlackVoices and BET.com with audiences that were 79.9 percent, 64.8 percent and 58.6 percent Democratic, respectively. Salon.com and Village Voice ranked fourth and fifth among Democrats, with 55.3 and 55.2 composition percent.

"The fact that the online population is more heavily composed of Republicans than Democrats is principally a function of the Republican party's higher composition within the overall electorate," said Nielsen//NetRatings analyst Ken Cassar. "This is exacerbated by the fact that online penetration continues to be deeper among affluent households, which have historically skewed Republican," he continued.

http://www.marketwire.com/mw/release_html_b1?release_id=178875

[gatorboy]

1. BET.com is a political website?

:shrug:

[SharonAnn]

2. Republicans higher concentration within the electorate???

The top three Democratic sites were African-American Web sites?

Methinks something doth smell here with this analysis.

[Tarcat1]

3. Not a surprise

This isn't a surprise. The correlation between income and internet access is large.

[BleedingHeartPatriot]

4. Studies, links? Where is the information to support your claim?

MKJ

[LonelyLRLiberal]

5. Who cares if the Puke base listens to Limpballs?

No one is going to reach those idiots anyway.

[magellan]

6. FALSE CONCLUSION

"The fact that the online population is more heavily composed of Republicans than Democrats is principally a function of the Republican party's higher composition within the overall electorate,"

:wtf:? The political makeup of people with online access has no concrete bearing on how things look on the ground. At most all it says is that Republicans have wider access to the internet than Democrats, for an unstated reason -- and even then you have to back the assertion up with data showing you're counting distinct, actual visits to the websites (as opposed to web stats ginned up by search result hits, etc) AND you also have to prove each visitor's political leaning!

Back to the point: how does the alleged smaller composition of Dems online, even if true, translate into less Dems in the electorate? Talk about a Leap of Faith!!

Nielson/NetRatings don't say how they derived these statistics, nor do I believe there's any reliable way to confirm them. Until someone can prove to me otherwise I consider it more of the usual well-timed pre-election GOP mumbo jumbo, no doubt paid for by you and me.