US President Donald Trump, who treats Twitter as his typewriter, is followed by almost one in five adult Americans on the micro-blogging platform, a new survey has found.
Trump is a prolific Twitter user, using the social media site to promote his policies and criticize his opponents.
A new Pew Research Center analysis on Monday estimated that around one in every five adult Twitter users in the US (19 per cent) follow Trump’s personal account on the platform, @realDonaldTrump.
Trump’s immediate predecessor, Barack Obama (@BarackObama), is followed by 26 per cent of US adult Twitter users.
Bill Clinton is the only other former president with a public Twitter account, followed by 6 per cent of adult users.
The analysis was based on a nationally representative sample of 2,388 US adults who use Twitter.
“The estimate is based on the 87 per cent of adult Twitter users in the study who have public-facing accounts; it does not include the 13 per cent of these users who have private accounts since it is not possible to independently verify which accounts those users follow,” said the survey.
Not surprisingly, Republican and Republican-leaning adult Twitter users are more likely than Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents to follow Trump on the platform.
About three-in-10 Republican adult Twitter users follow Trump (31 per cent), while 13 per cent of Democratic adult Twitter users do so.
“Conversely, nearly four in 10 Democratic adult Twitter users (38 per cent) follow Obama, compared with just 9 per cent of those who are Republican or lean Republican,” said the survey.
Among users who follow Trump on the platform, 54 per cent approved of his job performance as of late 2018, compared with 24 per cent of adult Twitter users who don’t follow the president.
Around a third (34 per cent) of adult US Twitter users who say they have tweeted about politics in the last 30 days follow Trump, and 51 per cent follow Obama.
By contrast, among those who say they have never tweeted about politics, 15 per cent follow Trump and 18 per cent follow Obama.
“Many Americans are exposed to Trump’s tweets even if they don’t follow him on the platform, such as through retweets, quote tweets or in media coverage,” said the Pew survey.