Three surprising facts about the protesters at the Republican National Convention

Protester Chelsea Byers, right, of Los Angeles, pretends to use money to wipe sweat from the brow of a giant Donald Trump head worn by Alice Newberry of Washington State. They are joined by Rebecca Green, left, of Cleveland. The women, members of "Code Pink," marched with other protesters through Public Square in Cleveland on Monday, July 18, 2016 during the Republican National Convention. / Photo by Antonella Crescimbeni

Protester Chelsea Byers, right, of Los Angeles, pretends to use money to wipe sweat from the brow of a giant Donald Trump head worn by Alice Newberry of Washington State. They are joined by Rebecca Green, left, of Cleveland. The women, members of “Code Pink,” marched with other protesters through Public Square in Cleveland on Monday, July 18, 2016 during the Republican National Convention. / Photo by Antonella Crescimbeni

The Penn State students who attended the RNC talk about their research methodology and findings in The Washington Post. Read and excerpt of this article below:

“During the RNC, our team of 14 researchers covered all permitted rallies, marches and the official protest areas outside the convention. This included the March to End Poverty Now, several Stand Together Against Trump marches, rallies and demonstrations, and the pro-Trump America Unity Rally.”

“Our survey protocol was based on the Caught in the Act of Protest: Contextualizing Contestation project. The protocols designed by this project have been implemented at dozens of protests in Europe and South and Central America. In Cleveland, we used several techniques to sample participants in various forms of demonstrations, from stationary crowds at protest sites to marches down the streets.”

Read more at The Washington Post.

A Team of Political Scientists, a Convention Like No Other, and a Search for One Good Protest

A protester is blocked after holding up a "No Racism, No Hate" sign during the Republican National Convention at the Quicken Loans Arena in Cleveland on Tuesday, July 19, 2016. / Photo by Antonella Crescimbeni

A protester is blocked after holding up a “No Racism, No Hate” sign during the Republican National Convention at the Quicken Loans Arena in Cleveland on Tuesday, July 19, 2016. / Photo by Antonella Crescimbeni

A group from Penn State are attending both the Republican National Convention (RNC) and the Democrat National Convention to conduct research on protests. Their work at the RNC is featured in at article at The Chronicle of Higher Education. Read some excerpts of this article below:

“The Pennsylvania State University delegation — a professor, three graduate students, and 10 undergrads — arrived here at the Republican National Convention full of excitement suffused with dread.”

“Political junkies of all stripes were descending on Cleveland to reckon with the once-unthinkable coronation of the businessman Donald J. Trump as the standard-bearer of the Republican Party. The candidate’s showmanship, combined with rumblings of a possible mutiny among the delegates, promised a spectacle inside the heavily guarded Quicken Loans Arena. But the Penn State group was not here for the party. They were here for the party-crashers.”

“The team, led by Lee Ann Banaszak, a professor of political science, came to collect data for a study of the protesters — not just what they want and when they want it but also: Where are they from? How long are they staying? What do they care about?”

Read more at The Chronicle of Higher Education.

Preliminary research: Race inequality, candidate choice top issues for RNC protesters

 

Activist Kathy Wray Coleman, of Cleveland, who was handcuffed by police during a protest at the Republican National Convention on Monday, is transported to an ambulance after she complained of chest pains. Coleman is a leader of the Imperial Women's Coalition. (Photo by Antonella Crescimbeni/Penn State College of Communications)

Activist Kathy Wray Coleman, of Cleveland, who was handcuffed by police during a protest at the Republican National Convention on Monday, is transported to an ambulance after she complained of chest pains. Coleman is a leader of the Imperial Women’s Coalition. (Photo by Antonella Crescimbeni/Penn State College of Communications)

Preliminary findings from political science Professor Lee Ann Banaszak and Penn State students who are polling protesters at the Republican National Convention show that racism and racial equality and Trump as the Republican Party nominee are the top reasons people are taking to the streets in Cleveland.

On Monday — the group’s first day at the convention — the researchers surveyed three events: “End Poverty Now March,” “Stop Trump March” and “America First Movement Rally.”

RNC Preliminary Protester Issues

Very preliminary results showed that “people outside the convention were slightly less diverse than the American population, with fewer Latinos/Latinas and African-Americans than we find in the general population,” Banaszak said. “Nonetheless, racism and racial inequality was the most often mentioned issue among the people sampled outside the convention.”

Lee Ann Banaszak

Lee Ann Banaszak

Additionally, Banaszak said that fewer people turned out for the events on the first day of the convention than originally expected. The event sizes ranged from about 200 to 500 or 600 people and original estimates of predicted turnout had been between 5,000 and 15,000 people, she said.

Members of the research group spoke with 111 individuals on Monday, and 70 percent agreed to be interviewed for the research project. Their work will continue through the end of the RNC convention and into the Democratic National Convention on July 25-28 in Philadelphia.

Banaszak said that the researchers’ survey method is different from past polling methods in that it helps take the personal bias out of the polling. Additionally, some preliminary data will continue to be available quickly because the researchers are submitting their findings through iPhones to a cloud-based database.

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