Opinion: Big data reports Trump in the lead followed by Rubio in South Carolina

Donald Trump at a rally at Sumter Country Civic Center in Sumter, S.C., Wednesday, Feb. 17, 2016. (ap)

Expanding on the first big data reports published around the New Hampshire primaries titled What big data predicts about the GOP primary race in New Hampshire, a new report analyzing sentiment, share of voice and key issues for voters nationally and in South Carolina, confirm a Trump and Clinton victory.

Following a lively GOP debate where Trump was frequently “booed” and fellow Latinos Cruz and Rubio exchanged fuego around immigration and their Spanish-speaking abilities, data suggests Trump will win — again.

The GOP has a compounding problem in reaching minorities since the George W. Bush era when he won 44 percent of the Latino vote. In 2012, Mitt Romney won just 27 percent of Hispanics.

— Liliana Gil-Valletta

Using a proprietary methodology called CulturIntel™, data was extracted from unstructured big-data that comes from discussions about each candidate across various digital and social media channels (Facebook, Twitter, message boards, forums, content sharing, etc.). Data was analyzed using an arsenal of tools such as key word Boolean, topical text analytics, artificial intelligence, machine learning and human oversight to understand sentiment, topics and opinions. Cultural segments are identified through profile scanning and language identifiers.

The data below shows share of voice and sentiment for each GOP candidate, including a breakdown by ethnic segment. Instead of hundreds of data points, it reports on thousands of unbiased inputs among adults 18+. These reports outline differences and affinity of candidates at the national and local levels across ethnic groups, which play an important role in diverse states like South Carolina.

This is what the big data analysis reveals about the South Carolina primaries based on analysis conducted 24 hours after Saturday's debate among adults 18+ in South Carolina, and national sentiment based on analysis captured over the last 60 days.

South Carolina plays and important role and is a benchmark for key swing states, given it will be the first of the primary states where minorities represent one-third of the population with African Americans representing 27.8 percent of the population. This will serve as a more representative sample of the nation’s demographic profile. Overall, minorities in the U.S. represent 27 percent of the eligible electorate, which played a winning factor for Obama’s two-term victory.

Republicans must recognize the importance of gaining support and relevance among America’s fastest growing voter block, represented by minorities and primarily Hispanics. The GOP has a compounding problem in reaching minorities since the George W. Bush era when he won 44 percent of the Latino vote. In 2012, Mitt Romney won just 27 percent of Hispanics.

According to the Pew Research Center, 87 percent of Republicans are white, a declining and aging population. This is a far higher proportion than the 63.7 percent of non-Hispanic whites that made up the U.S. population during the 2010 census. According to a GALLUP report, 11 percent of Republicans are minorities while minorities represent 40 percent of the U.S. population.

Hopefully this analysis helps draw political intelligence to help a party in need of relevant and fresh messaging to win in the new America.

Further analysis can be completed to identify the key drivers and topics correlating to positive, negative and neutral sentiment across segments as well as specific messaging opportunities by candidate by state. More information can be found at www.culturintel.com and more reports can be downloaded at the CulturIntel™ blog at culturintel.tumblr.com/.