On November 8th millions of Americans headed to their local poling stations to choose between Republican candidate Donald Trump and Democrat Hillary Clinton. In the end, Clinton was easily trumped and former reality TV star Donald Trump became the President-elect of the United States.
For most of election day, Pornhub’s U.S. traffic was up well above that of an average Tuesday, peaking as high as +17% at 8am. Perhaps Pornhub fans woke up even more excited and horny than usual that day, although we figure the extra time employers provided their workers to go cast their vote had shaken up the otherwise predictable week-day Pornhub fapping schedule.
When evening came around and election results started rolling in from across the country, Pornhub’s traffic dropped well below average, hitting it’s lowest point of -23% at 11pm Eastern Time. For the last 20 years most TV networks are able to predict a winner and make their announcement shortly after 11pm. When that didn’t happen, Pornhub’s traffic increased back to normal levels by 1am. Hillary Clinton conceded the election at 2:30am Eastern, and shortly thereafter Pornhub’s traffic rose 10% above average.
Men were slightly more willing to give up Pornhub to watch the live election, with a -26% drop in normal traffic compared to a -22% drop for women. As Hillary’s chances for a victory became more slim, it seems as though more women stopped watch the election and headed back to Pornhub shortly after midnight. Once Hillary conceded, women’s traffic increased 10% above normal levels, while men stuck around to watch Trump’s acceptance speech.
By far the largest proportional traffic drop by any one age group was Pornhub visitors over the age of 65. Their traffic was down -42% below normal levels at Midnight Eastern Time. The largest increase we saw earlier in the day come from people aged 18-24 with a +34% increase in normal Pornhub traffic from 8am to 9am.
After the final results had come in, our statisticians then combined the hourly traffic changes for the states that had voted Republican and the states that had voted Democrat. Democrat favoring states were more likely to contribute to Pornhub’s morning traffic increase on Election Day. Republican states were more likely to give up Pornhub time to watching the live results come in, with their traffic dropping -24% at 11pm, versus only a -21% drop in Democrat voting states. Democrat traffic stayed lower than average slightly longer than Republican states, who had a huuuuuuge +20% increase in daily traffic after Hillary Clinton conceded the election to Mr. Trump.
The following chart illustrates the traffic difference from 7pm to 3am (Eastern) on Election Day compared to the same period on an average Tuesday. Folks in the District of Columbia were most likely to tune into the election rather than Pornhub with a -24% traffic drop. Kansas had a -22% traffic drop, followed by -19% in Maine, Minnesota, Vermont and Massachusetts. The election had the smalled effect on traffic from Hawaii where it only dropped -1% below normal.
Just a regular day.