A Tale of Two Emails - Analyzing Donald Trump's Emails to Supporters

Through some tomfoolery, I somehow landed myself onto Team Trump's email list. While I largely ignored these emails prior to the election (having firmly decided to vote for Biden), I couldn't help but notice how his messaging became far more combative after the election had been decided. This comes as no surprise to those closely following US news; Trump has clearly sought to sow seeds of doubt in America's democratic process, having in all likelihood lost the election. He has done so on Twitter and in public settings. But one mode of communication that should not be lost is how he communicates directly to his base. Twitter and press conferences are almost theater for those who don't support Trump. But his emails to supporters echo the same sentiments.

Before we get in, just a couple of Editor's notes:

• I did not donate to the Trump campaign, which may explain the number of emails received
• I likely put in that I am an Illinois resident, which means I may not have received as many emails related to contested elections in Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, or Georgia has residents of those states
• The Word Clouds were done using Power BI, and I am new to the Word Cloud functionality. Hopefully, I'll get better at it :)
• I copied the data manually from my emails (321 from October 23 to November 15). So there is some inconsistency and potential human error. But the overall story tracks. Also, unless you want to review the 321 emails I received, this is the best you'll get.

Analyzing the Subject Lines

If you're lazy like me, you decide to read emails based on the subject headers. So let's take a look at those first. Here's a word cloud of the subject headers before Election Day and after the final Presidential Debate:

Word Cloud from subjects of Trump emails: Oct 23 to Nov 3

Over these 11 days, the Trump team sent out a respectable 121 emails (or 11 a day). The top 8 words in the subjects (excluding some common words and weird omissions) are:

• Trump and win: 10 occurrences
• Vote: 9 occurrences
• President: 8 occurrences
• Deadline, Election, Tomorrow, Biden: 6 occurrences

Then comes the day after Election Day. Michigan and Wisconsin, which were looking to be Trump wins on Election night, were "red mirages" where the tallies of mail-in votes helped spur Biden to victories in those states. As that happened, the narrative Trump supporters received from the President drastically changed.

Word Cloud from subjects of Trump emails: Nov 4 - Nov 15

In these 12 days, the Trump team sent 200 emails, an astounding 16+ per day. The top 9 words in the subject lines were:

• Election: 32 times
• Defend: 14 times
• Need: 12 times
• News, Defense, Update: 7 times
• Democrats, Help, President: 6 times

Trump used the word "Election" in his subject headers in a whopping 16% of his emails to his supporters. He also brought in words like "Defend" and "Defense", both in relation to "defending the election". It's clear that the message shifted away from casting a vote for President Trump to defending the sanctity of an election that, for all intents and purposes, did not need any defending.

Analyzing the Body of the Email

There's also a lot of messaging beyond the subject (obviously). Here's what the bodies of the emails look like between the final debate and Election Day. Editor's note: I copied these all from the emails in a fairly inconsistent manner, so terms like "Contribute" will be ignored:

Word Cloud from bodies of Trump emails: Oct 23 to Nov 3

The top 5 words in the bodies (excluding some common words and weird omissions) are:

• President: 206 occurrences
• Trump: 156 occurrences
• Election: 143 occurrences
• Day: 118 occurrences
• America: 93 occurrences

Additionally, the bodies of the emails mentioned Biden 59 times and Kamala 26 times, though interestingly the word cloud does not include Joe or Harris (likely due to Trump's penchant for nicknames).

Now let's look at the bodies of the emails between the day after Election Day and November 15 (again with the analysis excluding terms like "Contribute"):

Word Cloud from bodies of Trump emails: Nov 4 to Nov 15

The top 6 words in the bodies (excluding some common words and weird omissions) are:

• Election: 413 occurrences
• Trump: 369 occurrences
• President: 278 occurrences
• Official: 159 occurrences
• Defense: 155 occurrences
• Fund: 148 occurrences

More troubling, the following words showed up an inordinate number of times:

• Fight: 100 occurrences
• Steal: 45 occurrences
• Force: 36 occurrences
• Undermine: 22 occurrences

The analysis of the body shows two things:

1. A frightening increase in aggressive rhetoric. While some may argue that "fights" or "force" can refer to upcoming legal battles, this language has arguably spurred violent actions well beyond the courts, especially when you look at some of the potential plots stopped in Philadelphia (link). Terms like "Steal" or "Undermine" attack the heart of democracy and the faith in the election system.
2. A clear fundraising effort. Donald Trump has established an Election Defense Fund, and for those of you who don't know, a lot of this money is not going to the legal battles related to the election, but rather the RNC and Trump's PAC (link). Trump appears to be actively undermining faith in our democracy to raise money for the Republicans and his PAC.

What can we learn?

Obviously, Trump's rhetoric to the public has been troubling, but it is reverberating even further in the echo chambers that his supporters are in. Beyond conservative media and conservative Twitter heads, Trump's direct messaging to his supporters is increasing in aggression and turnaround. Even on November 15, 12 days after the election, Trump was sending emails to his supporters at a pace of one every 90 minutes. And it is clear that the rhetoric will not simmer down as many hope, especially with recent news regarding Floyd County (link) where arguments of a "stolen election" will only be amplified. This is despite the fact that (1) this was only 2600 total votes resulting a shift of 800 votes in Trump's favor and (2) this is likely an isolated incident of human error (especially when considering the fact that Fulton county is already done with their hand count). We cannot expect Trump to tamper down his rhetoric, but we must continue to have diligence in reading the news, listening to our election experts, and trusting our democratic infrastructure. And more importantly, we must fight the misinformation that will only continue to increase.

I'll be working on a companion piece where I analyze Joe Biden's emails during the same timeframe. So please stay tuned for it!