People Who Read Harry Potter Are More Likely to Disapprove of Donald Trump, Says New Study

JK Rowling has compared Donald Trump to Voldemort, so it's not too surprising that a recent study found a link between disdain for the presidential candidate and reading Harry Potter. Prepared by Diana Mutz, a professor from the University of Pennsylvania, the study discovered that the more Harry Potter books people read, the more likely they were to be tolerant. What's more, the investigation found in a follow-up that respondents were also more likely to disapprove of Donald Trump if they read the series. The results of Mutz's research will be published in the American Political Science Association's Political Science and Politics journal in the Fall.

The questionnaire was first administered in 2014 to gauge the extent Harry Potter had influenced general political opinions like gay marriage and tolerance of Muslims; she surveyed 1,142 people with varying political party associations. Mutz then reexamined the question of Donald Trump's approval and Harry Potter when he entered the presidential race and found that "each book that a person has read lowers their evaluation of Donald Trump by roughly two to three points." Interestingly, Mutz did not find the same correlation between those who had seen the Harry Potter movies and disapproval of Trump. Mutz hypothesized that "reading inherently requires much higher levels of attention and allows for greater nuance in characters, many of whom are neither wholly good nor wholly bad."

There are three themes in the series that Mutz posits influence readers' political opinions: the value of tolerance and respect for difference, opposition to violence and punitiveness, and the dangers of authoritarianism.

"These pro-unity views come through loud and clear in the storyline and have also been publicly voiced by the author of the series, J.K. Rowling, who has publicly espoused anti-Brexit and anti-Trump political views," concluded Mutz. "Harry Potter's popularity worldwide stands to make a difference not just in the U.S. election, but in elections across Europe that involve aggressive and domineering candidates worldwide."