Trump By the Numbers: An Analysis of Donald Trump’s Presidential Campaign Website, DonaldJTrump.com

In June 2016, I analyzed DonaldJTrump.com. Some of the statistics I uncovered are unsurprising, while others are rather fascinating. Here they are.

Trump extensively cites “banned” media organizations on DonaldJTrump.com

Between January 2015 and June 2016, there were 1084 “In the News” posts made to DonaldJTrump.com. Most of these were simply copied-and-pasted from news websites. 11% of these posts were from news organizations that Trump has “blacklisted.” The news organizations that he has refused to grant press credentials to, yet have been extensively copied-and-pasted to DonaldJTrump.com, include Washington Post (61 posts), Politico (30 posts), New Hampshire Union Leader (11 posts), Des Moines Register (10 posts), and Huffington Post (2 posts).

Only 2 Countries are Mentioned on DonaldJTrump.com “Position” Pages

On the 7 “Position” pages on DonaldJTrump.com, only two countries (other than the U.S.) are mentioned: China and Mexico.

Word Count of All 7 of Donald Trump’s “Positions” on DonaldJTrump.com

It would be easy to highlight what “positions” Trump has not written about on DonaldJTrump.com. That’s because he only has webpages for 7 distinct “positions.” (Hillary Clinton has webpages for 32 distinct “issues.” Some of the “issues” that she writes about on HillaryClinton.com aren’t even mentioned on DonaldJTrump.com. Example #1: HillaryClinton.com has an “issues” page on autism, yet the word autism doesn’t appear anywhere on DonaldJTrump.com; as of July 17 ,2016. Example #2: HillaryClinton.com has an “issues” page on paid family leave, yet the words family leave or paid leave don’t appear anywhere on DonaldJTrump.com; as of July 17, 2016.)

Breitbart is the most cited source on DonaldJTrump.com

Between January 2015 and June 2016, there were 1,084 “In the News” posts made to DonaldJTrump.com. The most common sources copied-and-pasted to Trump’s website were Breitbart (121 posts), Fox (79 posts), and CNN (76 posts).

Original research by Lee Bob Black.

Methodology

Note: The following is crucial, yet somewhat dull. Just sayin’.

(1) Data collection and analysis of the “Position” pages on DonaldJTrump.com.

Refer to this Google document.

(2) Data collection related to the “In the New” pages on DonaldJTrump.com.

To uncover the above statistics, first I had to collect the data.

I went to the very first page that summarized the first few “In the News” posts. (The summary page on DonaldJTrump.com I’m referring to was DonaldJTrump.com/media/archive/2015/01/P6. It showed posts from January 17 to 19, 2015. It was removed from the website in early 2017. Yet I archived a copy of it.). Then I copied the title, news, source, etc., and pasted the data into a Google spreadsheet. Then I went to the next chronological page that summarized the next batch of “In the News” posts. (For example, the next summary page on DonaldJTrump.com was donaldjtrump.com/media/archive/2015/01/P6. It showed posts from January 20 to 26, 2015. Even though this page was removed in early 2017, I archived it.) Then I again copied the data and pasted it into a Google spreadsheet. I did this for hundreds of pages that summarized “In the News” posts.

(3) Data “cleaning” the “In the News” data.

Then I had to “scrub” the data that I collected related to 1,084 “In the News” posts made to DonaldJTrump.com.

(A) DonaldJTrump.com incorrectly identified some sources. I corrected many of these errors, as best I could. Examples:

• DonaldJTrump.com incorrectly attributed the article “Donald Trump Just Dramatically Entered a Campaign Rally by Pulling up in a Trump-Branded 757” (archive) to Yahoo News. In fact, the article was by Business Insider (archive) and was reposted/syndicated to Yahoo Finance (archive).
• DonaldJTrump.com incorrectly attributed an article by The Forum of Fargo-Moorhead, a newspaper in Fargo, North Dakota, to “INFORUM.” Yes, inforum.com is the newspaper’s website. But INFORUM is not the name of their newspaper.
• DonaldJTrump.com incorrectly attributed the article “Donald Trump has Double-Digit Lead Over Ted Cruz in Indiana Poll” (archive) post to MSNBC. In fact, the post was a video by the NBC’s Today Show.
• DonaldJTrump.com incorrectly attributed a Vox article to Vox Media. Yes, a company named Vox Media runs Vox.com, but the publication is just called Vox.
• On the “One on One with Donald Trump” (archive) post, there was an attempt to link to a circa January 20, 2016 video interview with Trump. However, the link went to www.billoreilly.com/video#play, a page that has significantly changed since January 20, 2016.

(B) I corrected numerous spelling mistakes made on DonaldJTrump.com when Trump’s team attempt to cite sources. Examples:

• DonaldJTrump.com incorrectly spelled YouTube as “Youtube.” It should be one word camel-cased.
• DonaldJTrump.com incorrectly spelled SoundCloud as “Sound Cloud.” It should be one word camel-cased.
• DonaldJTrump.com incorrectly spelled Newsweek as “NewsWeek.” It should be one word and it should not be camel-cased.
• DonaldJTrump.com incorrectly spelled Townhall (a website) as “Town Hall.” It should be one word and should not be camel-cased.
• DonaldJTrump.com incorrectly spelled PolitiFact as “Politifact.” It should be one word camel-cased.
• DonaldJTrump.com incorrectly spelled SoonerPoll as “Sooner Poll.” It should be one word camel-cased.
• DonaldJTrump.com incorrectly spelled Newsday as “News Day.” It should be one word, not two words.
• DonaldJTrump.com incorrectly spelled Daily Mail as one camel-cased word, “DailyMail.” It should be two words.
• DonaldJTrump.com incorrectly spelled RealClearPolitics as three words, “Real Clear Politics.” It should be one word camel-cased.
• DonaldJTrump.com incorrectly referred to CNN Money as “Money CNN.”
• DonaldJTrump.com incorrectly referred to Richmond Times-Dispatch as “Richmond Times.”
• DonaldJTrump.com incorrectly referred to WND (WorldNetDaily) as “Wind.”

(C) DonaldJTrump.com had several duplicates of the same article. Examples:

• The “Donald Trump Just Hit a Critical Threshold for the GOP Nomination — One that his Opponents Might Not” article was incorrectly duplicated. One was posted on March 14, 2016. The other was posted on March 15, 2016. The URLs were similar, yet different. (1) The first was DonaldJTrump.com/media/donald-trump-just-hit-a-critical-threshold-for-the-gop-nomination-one- (note that “one” appears at the end of this URL (archive). (2) The second was DonaldJTrump.com/media/donald-trump-just-hit-a-critical-threshold-for-the-gop-nomination-one-that (note that the word “that” appears at the end of this URL (archive)
• The “Real Estate Mogul Donald Trump Returns to New Hampshire” article was incorrectly duplicated. Both were posted on April 27, 2015. The URLs were similar, yet different. (1) DonaldJTrump.com/media/real-estate-mogul-donald-trump-returns-to-new-hampshire1 (note that “1” appears at the end of this URL (archive). (2) DonaldJTrump.com/media/real-estate-mogul-donald-trump-returns-to-new-hampshire (note that “1” doesn’t appear at the end of this URL) (archive).

(D) DonaldJTrump.com occasionally didn’t even cite their sources (i.e. didn’t identify where they copied-and-pasted the content from). Examples:

• The “Real Estate Mogul Donald Trump Returns to New Hampshire” (archive) post didn’t cite a source. The original article was copied-and-pasted to DonaldJTrump.com. It was written by Allison Sonfist and appears on the New England Cable News (NECN) website (archive). I added the source.
• The “Weekend Win Bolster Trump’s Mich. Campaign” (archive) post didn’t cite a source. The original article was copied-and-pasted to DonaldJTrump.com. It was written by Detroit News (archive). I added the source.
• The “Donald Trump’s Immigration Message May Resound in New Hampshire” (archive) post didn’t cite a source. The original article was copied-and-pasted to DonaldJTrump.com. It was written by the New York Times (archive). I added the source.
• The “Trump Dominates South Carolina in Latest One America News Network Poll” (archive) post didn’t cite a source. The original article was copied-and-pasted to DonaldJTrump.com. It was written by One America News Network (archive). I added the source.
• The “Donald Trump Tops Nationwide Poll with 40% Support” (archive) post didn’t cite a source. It was possibly copied-and-pasted from either from a comment posted to https://disqus.com/home/discussion/redstate/this_is_the_single_most_amazing_thing_about_donald_trump8217s_supporters/ (archive) or a comment posted to http://hotair.com/archives/2015/08/25/fox-news-staffers-warn-trump-to-back-off-of-megyn-kelly-after-feud-reignites/comment-page-9/ (archive). I couldn’t determine what was the correct source of this post.

(E) Occasionally, some publications were referred to on DonaldJTrump.com by their acronyms or by their short names, whereas elsewhere they were referred to by their full names. For consistency and clarity, I expanded or changed some acronyms. Examples:

• Expanded “SCPR” to “Southern California Public Radio (SCPR).”
• Expanded “PPP” to “Public Policy Polling (PPP).”
• Expanded “Journal Sentinel” to “Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.”
• Expanded “TWC News” to “Time Warner Cable News.”
• Expanded “Union Leader” to “New Hampshire Union Leader.”
• Expanded “AP” to “Associate Press (AP).”
• Changed “AP News” to “Associate Press (AP).”
• Changed “AJC.com” to “Atlanta Journal-Constitution (AJC).”

(F) In parentheses (round brackets), I occasionally appended some words to sources. Examples:

• Appended the words “part of the USA Today Network” to several sources, including: “Clarion-Ledger (part of the USA Today Network)”; “Detroit Free Press (part of the USA Today Network)”; “Indianapolis Star (IndyStar; part of the USA Today Network)”; “Milwaukee Journal Sentinel (part of the USA Today Network).”
• Appended the words “ABC affiliate” to “WMUR (ABC affiliate)” and “WQOW (ABC affiliate).”
• Appended the words “CBS affiliate” to “WBTW News (CBS affiliate).”
• Appended “Cedar Rapids” to: “The Gazette (Cedar Rapids).”
• Appended “Dallas–Fort Worth” and “Fox affiliate” to “CBS DFW (Dallas–Fort Worth).”
• Appended“Florida” to “Bay News (Florida).”
• Appended “Quad Cities” to “WQAD 8 (Quad Cities).”

(G) Some other changes I made:

• Changed “Fox News Insider” to just “Fox News.”
• Changed “WQOW” to “ABC News” or “ABC (WQOW).”
• Changed “The Courier” to “Conroe Courier (Texas).”
• Changed “WND” to “WND (WorldNetDaily).”
• Changed “Fox and Friends” to “Fox News (Fox and Friends)”.

(H) For many sources (though not all sources) I removed “The” from their names. I removed it from following media companies so that the data would be easier to sort in the Google spreadsheet:

• American Mirror.
• American Spectator.
• Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
• Baltimore Sun.
• Boston Globe.
• Chicago Tribune.
• Clarion-Ledger.
• Conroe Courier.
• Conway Daily Sun.
• Daily Caller.
• Daily Nonpareil.
• Daily Signal.
• Dallas Morning News.
• Des Moines Register.
• Detroit News.
• Gateway Pundit.
• Journal Gazette.
• New York Times.
• News & Observer.
• Political Insider.
• Post and Courier.
• Pulse 2016.
• Sacramento Bee.
• Texas Tribune.
• Times of Israel.
• Tonight Show With Jimmy Fallon.
• Topeka Capital-Journal.
• Wall Street Journal.
• Washington Examiner.
• Washington Post.
• Washington Times.
• Weekly Standard.
• Wichita Eagle.