Twindex - Is this the future of political polling?

With the current US presidential campaigns in full flow, it has become clear how significant a role social media now plays. Polls have long played an essential part in gauging candidates’ popularity but the development of the ‘Twindex’ begs the question if these will ever be redundant?

Brought to life by data analysis company Topsy, in conjunction with polling firms North Star Opinion Research and The Mellman Group, the Twindex will provide a daily update of how the candidates are polling. Each day at 8pm EST, the Twindex will be updated, scoring the candidates from 1-100 as a percentile, Topsy explains. So in the present situation, Obama has a relatively neutral score (44) whilst Romney, the Republican presumptive nominee, is sitting at the more negative end of the scale (26). The tweets taken into account include those that directly refer to the candidate’s surname or their Twitter handle, but omit the use of hashtags and other ways of referring to the candidates.

Whilst the Twindex cannot be considered totally representative, only ‘15% of online adults are on Twitter (Feb 2012)’, it does help highlight the current overall trends in opinion of the candidates. When shown in comparison to the Gallup polls, the Twindex does generally reflect a similar view. Most notably with this, one can see Obama’s ratings universally shoot upwards following the death of Osama Bin Laden in May 2011.  The daily updates of Twindex can highlight the role of smaller scale events in their favourability. For instance, Twitter Government (@gov) has recently posted that Michael Phelps has suggested ‘#olympics gold-medal US gymnasts helped drive @BarackObama's +10 #twindex gain’.

So will the Twindex ever eclipse the need for traditional polls? Quite simply it seems the answer is no. Instead, if the two systems were to be used together, a more comprehensive view of public opinion would be possible. With traditional polls, a range of questions can be asked in a conversational, public style. Conversely, with the Twindex, insight can be gained into more private views, those usually limited to ‘coffee shops and water coolers’, but with lesser range. The head of government, news and social innovation at Twitter, Adam Sharp, views this combination as being the future of the Twindex. Still, one cannot totally rule out the possibility of polls exclusively utilising social media at some point. Voters could be asked to voice their opinions through social media on a range of topics and the results of this then collated into a chart much like what the Twindex uses. This would avoid any false answers and perhaps give a more realistic result. It is unknown where this creation could take political polling but there are definitely possibilities for change.

What the Twindex really shows us is the ever-increasing role social media plays in politics. With both candidates surpassing previous budgets on their digital campaigns and more people turning to social media, it is understandable how this is the case. Political Science professor Colin Moore has highlighted that ‘it allows candidates to… tailor their messages to specific demographics’. Furthermore, it can be important with those crucial undecided voters. The informative and influential role social media can have is able to directly contact with voters, arguably more closely than television or other forms of media. Ultimately, social media is slowly finding its form in the political realm and this trend undeniably has the power to expand.