Americans Received 6.7 Billion Political Messages In 2021, According to New RoboKiller Report

NEW YORK, June 9, 2022 – RoboKiller, the app that eliminates 99% of spam calls and text messages, today released its 2021 Political Insights report. The report reveals political messages remained prominent in an off-election year. In fact, Americans received an estimated 6.7 billion political messages in total, 5.8 billion by text and nearly 900 million by phone call.

These findings suggest political parties will continue to rely on political messages to reach voters, whether or not it is an election year. And although political robocalls were far fewer than political messages, political robocalls increased 5% compared to 2020 totals. As the 2022 midterm election nears, RoboKiller predicts Americans will see a spike in political robocalls and text messages, with political SMS shortcodes playing a pivotal role.

Political Insights: Key Findings and Takeaways

• Political text messages reached an estimated 5.8 billion, marking the second consecutive year politics-related text messages outpaced political robocalls (which reached an estimated 895 million).
• Both political parties relied on these mediums to reach supporters and potential voters. However, RoboKiller estimates 87% and 31% of messages contained Republican and Democratic keywords, respectively.
• Peer-to-peer messaging declined following the 2020 election cycle. Still, political shortcodes (five-or-six digit numbers parties lease to communicate with supporters and prospective voters) remained a prominent focus even during an off-election year. Shortcode messaging from core PAC and political figures continue to be one of the mediums used to reach Americans.

Meanwhile, political SMS shortcodes accounted for 5.7 billion of the 5.8 billion political messages in 2021. The National Republican Senatorial Committee sent over 150 million political messages, while the Trump Alerts Program followed with over 135 million messages.

Read the full 2021 Political Insights Report here.

RoboKiller’s Data Insights

RoboKiller’s robocall and spam text insights are powered by a global database of millions of known phone scams and audio fingerprints. Data is estimated by monitoring observed robocall and spam text trends for Americans who have trusted RoboKiller to stop their spam calls.

SOURCE RoboKiller