Music On The Campaign Trail: How Pop Music Explains The Difference Between Iowa And New Hampshire

Anyone trying to understand why Donald Trump always has thought New Hampshire would be friendlier to him than Iowa should put aside the polls for a moment and focus on what each state’s Republican voters are putting on their Spotify playlists.According to data for the week ending Feb. 1, Iowa Republicans can’t stop listening to “This Is Amazing Grace” by Christian rocker Phil Wickham, which opens with the verse: “Who breaks the power of sin and darkness/Whose love is mighty and so much stronger/The King of Glory, the King above all kings.” Republicans in New Hampshire, meanwhile, prefer “Idle Hands” from EXGF, whose opening lines speak to a very different doctrine of inerrancy: “Just play the music/************, don’t stop.”The charts that those two songs sit atop are the sample of an election-year collaboration between Bloomberg Politics and Spotify, an on-demand streaming music platform.