This “GRP Gap” gives Democrat candidates an important advantage. Democrats can reach their target voters at a lower cost. For our Republican clients, we’ve developed media research and planning techniques to shrink the GRP Gap.

• During Monday – Friday, the average TV program has a rating among Democrat base voters that is 26% higher than the program’s rating among Republican base voters. In other words, Democrat voters are 26% more likely than Republicans to be watching.
• The Monday-Friday GRP Gap is largest during 9am-4pm daytime viewing, and smallest during primetime.
• Republican voters are easier to find on the weekend. On Saturday and Sunday, the average GRP Gap shrinks to about 6% compared to 26% during Monday – Friday.

Below is the national Monday – Friday GRP Gap graph by broadcast dayparts. These numbers are national averages. The GRP Gap varies significantly from market to market.

“GRP Gap”: Democrat Base voters are 24% more likely to be watching broadcast TV Monday-Friday

Source: NMRPP analysis of Scarborough Research national study; N=208,348 adults 18+. Target Media Index™ and contents © 2001-2012 by NMRPP. Scarborough data is the property of Scarborough Research.

TARGET MEDIA INDEX™ scores: This graph plots television viewing for Base Republicans, Republican Swing voters, and Base Democrats during the course of a typical Monday-Friday broadcast day. These scores are for the national combined audiences of the four major television networks – ABC, CBS, NBC, and FOX.

TMI scores compare viewing by all adults (index = 100) to viewing by each target voter group. For example, at 9:00 am, the Base Democrat index score is 120. This means that Base Democrats are 20% more likely than the average adult to be watching television at this time of the day Monday through Friday.

While demographics alone are not necessarily predictive of political consumer voting behaviors and beliefs, this chart gives a sense of the similarities and differences across the groups. For example, in the upper left among high-turnout Democrats, the top-ranked demographic characteristic is African-American; the index score of 176 means that black Americans are 1.76 times more likely than the average adult to be a high-turnout Democrat. The table estimates there are roughly 6.6 million black high-turnout Democrats of 36 million high-turnout Democrats.

High-turnout partisans and leaners at both ends of the political spectrum tend to be older, better educated and, particularly in the case of Republicans, to have higher incomes. High-turnout independents are demographically similar to the high-turnout partisans, although a bit younger and less wealthy. The none-of-these voters are less well-off, less well-educated, and more likely to be out of work.

The lower turnout presidential-only voters in the second row are younger. Presidential-only voters under 30 are particularly likely to describe themselves as a pure independent or none-of-these. Interestingly, military-specific occupation is the one demographic characteristic of the presidential-only vote that cuts across party segments. The presidential-only independent segment is a good example of the limitations of demographics to explain political consumer behaviors – this segment indexes highly against both high-income professionals and the unemployed.

Media behaviors of political consumer segments

This table ranks the top ten media categories, based on their index scores, for each of the twelve political consumer segments. Cable channels, because their audiences are relatively smaller, are most likely to show up in these rankings. Fox News and Fox Business lead with Republicans and Republican leaners, while MSNBC, CNN, HLN and, less predictably, CNBC are favored by Democrats and Democratic leaners. High-turnout voters enjoy sports – for example, The Golf Channel ranks in the top ten for high- turnout independents and none-of-these, as well as Republicans and Republican leaners.

Media preferences of presidential-only voters reflect their age. Hours spent on the Internet shows up here, along with radio music formats and reality television programs. For example, higher turnout Republicans and leaners are more-likely to be listening to news/talk radio. But the radios of presidential-only Republicans, leaners, and independents are more likely to be tuned to contemporary Christian, country, classic rock, and hot adult contemporary stations. Presidential-only voters are lighter consumers of news, and therefore more likely to get candidate information from advertising and entertainment programs.

For the political marketer, identifying truly independent voters can be tricky because Americans are predisposed to say that they are one of them. After all, being an independent is a good thing. In the popular news media, the independent voter is portrayed as a more virtuous public citizen than the “hard core partisans who refuse to compromise or reach across the aisle.” Americans constantly hear, and believe, that open-minded independents decide elections. Doesn’t every voter want to be one of these key decision makers instead of a nasty partisan? Independents get interviewed by reporters, invited to focus groups, and might even get to be in a debate night “dial group” on a cable news network and meet Frank Luntz in person. Just like being “green”, being a political independent is something that can make you proud of yourself. It’s amazing that there are any partisans still left in modern America.

For all the reasons above, survey respondents are biased to over-report being an independent or “leaner” when they talk to poll takers (just as they over-report how often they actually vote in elections.) In nearly all professional political polls, the party identification question (“Do you consider yourself a ….?”) comes at the end of the survey after the respondent has made numerous personal evaluations about issues, elected officials, candidates, and often the parties themselves. After ten to twenty minutes of these sorts of questions—most of which the respondent is thinking about for the first time—comes the party id question when the respondent is asked “What team are you on?” It can be easy to give the politically correct answer of “I vote for the person, not for the party,” and describe yourself as an independent or just “leaning” Democratic or Republican. Traditional political polling could be giving us a muddy view of the true partisanship of the voting population.

Using consumer research to identify independents and “nones”

For a clearer and more granular perspective on the independent voter, our firm in 2001 began purchasing and analyzing large-sample consumer research databases, including the Scarborough survey of approximately 220,000 American adults each year. The very large sample size enables us to examine small voter groups and specific media usage behaviors that can’t accurately be measured with traditional political surveys of 300-1200 respondents. Additionally, there is less potential for question bias in consumer surveys such as Scarborough. The party identification question on the Scarborough questionnaire is not preceded by other political questions that might contaminate the party id response. As in an exit poll or the Census, Scarborough respondents complete a written survey and can privately indicate their true partisan leanings without having to tell an interviewer. Based on approximately 416,000 interviews conducted in 2010 and 2011, the American political market looks something like this:

Describing themselves as “independents” are 10.6% of registered voters. Interestingly, another 9.4% of registered voters check “None of these,” a category similar to the “None of the above” that occasionally appears on ballots. “None of these” (let’s call them nones) are an interesting group, and remind us that there are different breeds of non-partisan voters. Many of the nones are Americans who are simply not interested in politics and do not participate – among those not registered to vote, 56.9% describe themselves as nones vs. just 9.4% among registered voters. A Republican who is an avid supporter of the Tea Party could find herself checking “None of these” on the survey, and we can assume some percentage of nones identify with the Tea Party, libertarian candidates like Ron Paul, and other smaller “parties” and movements.

What is clear is that the percentage of all types of independents – including independents who “lean” toward both parties — has been increasing in Obama was elected. The combined group of independent leaners, pure independents, and nones now account for 40.7% of all registered voters, a marked increase since Obama was elected in 2008. The impact of independents on the 2012 election will be larger in than in was in 2008.