OSLO — The most recent study, conducted by NayaDaya, YouGov, and Statista, reveals that eight out of ten US voters are emotionally either on Trump’s or Biden’s side. One-fifth of them are not — these voters could possibly still be influenced.

The two studies, which are completely different from traditional polls, were conducted in the US in September and now in October. They indicate that voter emotions and expected behavior toward Donald Trump’s re-election or Joe Biden’s election have not changed during the last month of the presidential campaign. In both studies, the most chosen emotion for Trump's re-election was disgust. In Biden’s case it was relief.

From the positivity-negativity perspective, voters feel more positively about Biden — especially in the Northeast where 55 % of them expressed positive emotions toward Biden’s election and only 32 % toward Trump’s re-election. Trump’s situation is better in the South where 41 % of respondents chose positive emotions when asked about feelings raised by the thought of his re-election. But even there Biden is leading — his corresponding positivity rate is 47%.

According to the results of these two studies, Trump has failed to catch up with Biden's lead in terms of voter emotions, behavior, and engagement. The scientific NayaDaya behavior matrix indicates that 45 % of all US voters are positively engaged in Biden’s election, 31 in Trump’s re-election. The Emotional Value Index (EVI) which predicts positive, engaged, and prosocial behavior for the election of the candidates, was 32/100 for Biden and 27/100 for Trump in October.

“These studies and our scientific method are about the long-lasting emotional and behavioral impact of significant phenomena like the election of the US presidential candidates. These kind of experiences and their influences on us change slowly — it’s hard to alter their direction in two weeks,” said Timo Salomäki, head of global growth at NayaDaya Inc., the company behind the study in collaboration with YouGov and Statista.

The presidential campaigns are in full swing in the social media. Trump’s activities in Twitter, however, seem not to be improving his chances. In September, 29 % of the Twitter users were loyals and advocates to Trump’s re-election. In October, this percentage had dropped to 22 %. During the same time, the percentage of loyals and advocates to Biden’s election rose from 49 % to 56 %.

“Although a lot has happened during the last month, Americans’ feelings and behavior toward the potential outcomes of the ongoing presidential election have barely changed. Trump would need something emotionally remarkable to change the course of the election to his favor. However, we should keep in mind that according to our studies, there are millions of voters who, as of yet, don’t have an emotional preference between the two candidates — surprises are still possible,” reminds Timo Järvinen, CEO at NayaDaya Inc.

The emotion data, collected by the YouGov online-panels in the US, was analyzed with the NayaDaya Emotional and Behavioral Intelligence. This method, algorithm, and analytics are based on the scientific theory and research, which has been independently conducted and published by the Geneva Emotion Research Group at the University of Geneva, Switzerland. — SG