Body Politic: San Francisco Social Voter Insights

Who are San Francisco’s social voters?

By Adriel Hampton

July 8, 2015

Voter file analysis enabled by the NationBuilder community building software shows that few voters wear their politics in their Twitter bios. They do, however, love to talk tech. And for every voter who identifies as an attorney or lawyer, five are CEOs or founders.

The Body Politic and The Adriel Hampton Group reviewed the social media bios of more than 40,000 registered San Francisco voters and will be providing ongoing analysis of the Social Voter as we head towards a citywide election on November 3. In the sample, 27,002 voters had Twitter information and 22,048 had Facebook information; 8,688 had both.

What does the Social Voter analysis show us?

• 275 voters in the sample used the word “technology” in their social profile bio. That number increases to 886 if the short form “tech” is used;
• 23 self-identified as progressive or used the “p2” (Progressives 2.0) designation (just five identified as conservative);
• 75 used the keyword “environment” in their profile;
• 1,557 used “SF” or “San Francisco” in their profile bio (many as part of a job title);
• 501 identified as a writer, reporter or columnist;
• 157 identified as an attorney or lawyer;
• 55 identified as a nurse or doctor;
• 351 are involved in consulting;
• 842 are self-identified CEOs or founders;
• 1,129 were engineers, developers or used the word “coder” in their profile.

Twitter audiences are even more concentrated than monetary wealth, and this proved true in our analysis.

• Only 1 of every 300 voters in the sample has 10,000 or more Twitter followers. Only 18 had 100,000 or more (including several early Twitter employees).
• Only two voters in the sample used the word “voter” in their bios – in job titles.

What questions would you like to ask about San Francisco Social Voters? Let us know in the comments and we’ll do our best to get you that insight.

Adriel Hampton

Adriel Hampton is a writer, investigator, strategic consultant and mindfulness practitioner. He runs The Adriel Hampton Group Ltd. in San Francisco and Los Angeles, and was a founding member of NationBuilder. Adriel is founder emeritus of SF Tech Dems and a board member at Legination Inc. Before joining NationBuilder, Adriel worked for SF City Attorney Dennis Herrera, and for the SF Examiner, Hayward Daily Review and Lodi News-Sentinel. He also founded SF City Camp and Gov 2.0 Radio, and, in 2009, ran for Congress in the East Bay.

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