Box Office: Democrats Go to More Movies Than Republicans

The statistic is part of a seven-year survey released by exit-polling service PostTrak.


Democrats go to the movies twice as much as Republicans, a new study finds.


The statistic was among many tidbits included in a seven-year survey celebrating the 1,000th movie surveyed by industry leader PostTrak, the exit-polling service founded by Rentrak (now owned by Comscore) and Screen Engine.


During that time period, Democrats frequented the movies far more than Republicans, or 12.4 percent versus 5.5 percent. Ditto for Independents (7.2 percent). The same also held true for ticket buyers who identified themselves as liberal and conservative (10.1 percent vs. 5 percent). Nearly 10 percent of moviegoers didn't state their political affiliation.


The PostTrak survey — touching on everything from streaming preferences to demo breakdowns to religious affiliation — includes information drawn from 1.25 million interviews.


PostTrak has found that the most prevalent genre is drama, while the highest-rated genre is adventure. Interestingly, audiences are the most generous in their responses in November — home to the Thanksgiving holiday — and the harshest in January. Nearly 25 percent of consumers polled over the years see three movies in a two-month period, confirming that frequent moviegoers fuel the box office.


In terms of age breakdown, 2019 mirrors other years so far in that consumers between ages 18 and 34 are the biggest moviegoing demo (27 percent), followed by the 25-34 age group (23 percent). For the full seven years, the breakdown is 25 percent and 20 percent, respectively.


Caucasians made up 54 percent of all ticket buyers during those years, followed by Hispanics (19 percent), African Americans (16 percent), Asians (7 percent) and other (5 percent). Hispanics and Asians have made the biggest gains. During its first year, PostTrak found that 15 percent of ticket buyers were Hispanic; in 2018, it was 22 percent. Asian moviegoers jumped from 2 percent to 8 percent.


Some of the information from past years was already highlighted in the annual report compiled by the Motion Picture Association of America, including the premise that fans of streaming are also avid moviegoers (35 percent).