Study Finds That Harry Potter Readers Tend Not to View Donald Trump Favorably

By Maryann Yin 

harry potter logoDiana Mutz, a political science professor at the University of Pennsylvania, has found that many of those who read the Harry Potter series do not hold a favorable opinion of the 2016 Republican presidential candidate, Donald Trump. The results of this study will be published in the 2016 election issue of PS: Political Science and Politics; the article is called “Harry Potter and the Deathly Donald.”

The Guardian reports that Mutz “polled a nationally representative sample of 1,142 Americans for the study, in 2014, and again in 2016. She asked them about their Harry Potter consumption, and using a zero to 100 scale, about their attitudes on issues from the death penalty to the treatment of Muslims, and in 2016, their feelings about Donald Trump. Democrats, Republicans and independents had all read the Harry Potter books in roughly equal numbers, found Mutz. She also discovered that each Potter book that her respondents had read lowered their feelings about Trump by two to three points on the 100-point scale.”

Mutz also notes that many readers of J.K. Rowling’s beloved children’s books series have taken to comparing Trump with the evil Lord Voldemort. According to Mashable, Rowling shared on Twitter that she is pleased with the findings of this study; we’ve embedded her tweet below. In the past, the author has spoken out against the reality television personality-turned-politician and even once tweeted that “Voldemort was nowhere near as bad.” She recently gave a speech at PEN America’s annual Literary Gala and called him “offensive and bigoted.” (via GOOD Magazine)