It may seem like a no-brainer that supporters of Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump don’t have a whole lot in common. But a new study by Seattle-based startup Placed worries less about political ideology and more about whether voters prefer White Castle or Cracker Barrel.
Placed, which deals in location-driven insights and ad intelligence, released a report Wednesday showing which businesses across the United States are most popular among Clinton and Trump backers. Of the 10 businesses identified for each candidate, there was no overlap.
Here’s how it worked:
Placed measured the offline behaviors of nearly 2 million double opt-in users to connect voting patterns to store visits. To map store visits to votes, Placed determined if its audience lived in a county that voted Republican or Democrat, and assigned that county to a candidate the results from the most recent primary or caucus. Once assigned a candidate, Placed directly measured the business associated with the voter to identify businesses they were more or less likely to visit (compared to the U.S. population).
Whatever stock you put in the methodology and the numbers and the businesses that show up on the lists, it’s at least fun to compare and contrast places visited by alleged would-be supporters of either presidential hopeful.
Clinton voters are most likely to visit a Citibank, which, according to Wikipedia, has 983 North American branches, the majority of which are concentrated in metropolitan areas such as New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, Washington, DC, Miami and San Francisco.
Other businesses of note on the Clinton list: White Castle, Dunkin Donuts, Whole Foods and Wawa, a chain of convenience stores.
Placed found that Trump supporters are hungry and they need gas. They were most likely to visit Sheetz, a convenience store chain with 500 locations in mid-Atlantic states. Similar businesses Kangaroo Express, Circle K and Pilot also made the cut.
Cracker Barrel, Waffle House, Hardee’s, Food Lion and Publix are Republican voter favorites — and we’re pretty sure none of those places ever served Trump Steaks.
“This contrast in visitation highlights that the differences between each candidate’s supporters go beyond demographics or geography,” said David Shim, founder and CEO of Placed. “Candidates can focus fundraising and election day get-out-the-vote efforts nearby these business.”
Digging deeper into the data, Placed also looked at swing businesses, much like swing states, where Clinton and Trump supporters are evenly split. The woman coming out of PetSmart with bird food or the guy with Buffalo Wild Wings sauce on his shirt could decide the election.
Clinton and Trump are going to be courting Bernie Sanders supporters come November, too, and only the northeastern grocery chain Stop & Shop had any overlap (it was in Clinton’s top 10). Head to Fred Meyer, Safeway or Nordstrom, among other places, to “feel the Bern” and convince shoppers there to vote for Clinton or Trump.
“The lack of overlapping businesses, even in the same party, highlights an opportunity for both Clinton and Trump to reach a new set of voters in distinctively different places in the physical world,” Shim said.
