Political inclination segmentation - GWI USA
Each wave ~40% of respondents select neither Democrat nor Republican when asked who they’d vote for if there were an election tomorrow. To help you understand who these undecided* voters are, we’ve segmented them into two groups:
Undecided voters with similarities to Democrat voters
Undecided voters with similarities to Republican voters
*we’re using “undecided” as a catch-all term for anyone who didn’t select Democrat or Republican, but it includes anyone who selected Independent, other, I would not vote, don’t know, or prefer not to say.
What does this segmentation tell me?
Importantly, we’re not trying to predict the outcome of an election here. Instead, we’re telling you who undecided voters are most similar to - Democrat voters or Republican voters. That doesn’t mean they’re necessarily going to vote that way if there’s an election tomorrow - it just means they resemble one group of voters more closely than the other.
How can I use it?
You can use the segmentation in isolation to understand undecided voters, or combine it with our voting intention question to split the entire population into either Democrat or Republican. Below are some insights* that shed light on the media habits across the political spectrum.
📺 Both undecided voters with similarities to Democrat voters (undecided Democrats) and undecided voters with similarities to Republican voters (undecided Republicans) spend less time watching live TV daily than their counterparts who intend to vote Democrat or Republican. Intended Democrats spend an average of 1:49 (h:mm) watching live TV daily, much more than undecided Democrats (1:14). The same is true for intended Republicans (1:48) and undecided Republicans (1:21).
🖥️ Intended Democrats spend more time online than intended Republicans. Both intended Democrats (8:13) and undecided Democrats (8:07) spend over 8 hours a day online, whereas both intended Republicans (7:17) and undecided Republicans (7:12) are well under that threshold.
🛜 Even if undecideds spend less time online than other Americans who might be more sure of their vote, there are still ways to reach them in a way that’s unique to each segment.
Undecided Democrats can be found on social media - they spend 2:30 every day on social platforms, 18 minutes more than the average American. And while undecided Republicans spend the least amount of time online, they rack up more minutes on music streaming services compared to the average American. Spotify is their go-to, but they can also be found streaming on Pandora.
*data is from GWI USA Q4 2023
How does it work?
The political inclination segmentation is powered by the wealth of data available within our GWI USA study in conjunction with a statistical method called cluster analysis. It includes all respondents over the age of 18 who didn’t select Democrat or Republican in our voting intention question, and is available for the waves Q3 2023 to Q3 2024.