A Data-Centric Approach to Understanding the 2020 U.S. Presidential Election

The application of analytics on Twitter feeds is a very popular field for research. A tweet with a 280-character limitation can reveal a wealth of information on how individuals express their sentiments and emotions within their network or community. Upon collecting, cleaning, and mining tweets from different individuals on a particular topic, we can capture not only the sentiments and emotions of an individual but also the sentiments and emotions expressed by a larger group. Using the well-known Lexicon-based NRC classifier, we classified nearly seven million tweets across seven battleground states in the U.S. to understand the emotions and sentiments expressed by U.S. citizens toward the 2020 presidential candidates. We used the emotions and sentiments expressed within these tweets as proxies for their votes and predicted the swing directions of each battleground state. When compared to the outcome of the 2020 presidential candidates, we were able to accurately predict the swing directions of four battleground states (Arizona, Michigan, Texas, and North Carolina), thus revealing the potential of this approach in predicting future election outcomes. The week-by-week analysis of the tweets using the NRC classifier corroborated well with the various political events that took place before the election, making it possible to understand the dynamics of the emotions and sentiments of the supporters in each camp. These research strategies and evidence-based insights may be translated into real-world settings and practical interventions to improve election outcomes.