Survey: Republicans now matching Democrats in social media use

As part of its ongoing work examining how Americans use the latest technologies, the Pew Research Center's new report released Thursday found the digital advantage that Democrats had over Republicans during the 2008 campaign had largely evaporated by the 2010 midterm elections, when the GOP scored huge gains.

The survey from Pew's Internet and American Life Project found overall that 22 percent of Americans used social media tools like Facebook or Twitter to follow events surrounding the November midterm elections. Most of those, 21 percent used social networking sites like Facebook or MySpace, while just 2 percent used Twitter,.

Of the 22 percent who used these tools, 45 percent voted for Republicans while 41 percent chose Democratic candidates. Of the social network site users, the survey found that 40 percent of Republican voters and 38 percent of Democrats used these sites to get politically involved.

"The social networking population as a whole has grown larger and demographically more diverse in recent years, and the same is true when it comes to political activity on social networking sites," said Aaron Smith, a senior researcher specialist at the center and the report's author, in a statement. "These platforms are now utilized by politically active individuals of all ages and ideologies to get news, connect with others, and offer their thoughts on the issues that are important to them."

Meanwhile, the survey showed 11 percent of Americans were willing to say on social networking sites who they voted for in the 2010 elections, while 9 percent of online adults received campaign or political content and 8 percent posted political content on Twitter or a social networking site.

The survey of 2,257 adults was conducted Nov. 3-24 and had a margin of error of plus or minus 2.4 percentage points.