More adult Twitter users follow Obama than Trump: survey

Despite leaving office in early 2017, former President Obama has more adult Twitter followers than President Trump, a new analysis finds.

While 19 percent of U.S. adult Twitter users follow Trump’s personal Twitter account, 26 percent of the platform’s users follow Obama, a Pew Research Center analysis shows.

Bill Clinton, the only other former president with a public Twitter account, has a 6 percent following rate among adult users.

{mosads}Republican and Republican-leaning Twitter users were more likely to follow Trump on Twitter than were Democrats and Democratic-leaning users, Pew found. Thirty-one percent of Republican users follow Trump, compared to 13 percent of Democrats.

When it comes to Obama, 38 percent of Democrats follow the former president, compared to only 9 percent of GOP or GOP-leaning users.

Those who follow Trump on Twitter were more likely to say they approved of his job as president, according to the analysis. As of late 2018, 54 percent of Trump’s adult followers approved of his performance, while 24 percent of users who didn’t follow him agreed.

Obama’s Twitter following totaled 107 million as of Wednesday morning, compared to Trump’s 62 million.

About 21 percent of adult Twitter users follow at least one member of Congress, with 17 percent following at least one Democratic congressional lawmaker and at least 8 percent following a GOP politician, the survey found.

Pew surveyed 2,388 U.S. adult Twitter users, whose accounts were followed and reviewed between December 2018 and July 2019. The final estimates were based off the 87 percent of users whose accounts are public.