How the Arab News/YouGov US Election MENA survey was conducted

(L - R) Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump speaks during a campaign rally at the Bayfront Park Amphitheateron on Tuesday in Miami, Florida. Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton jokes about GOP challenger Donald Trump during a rally in Sanford, Fla., on Tuesday. (Agencies)

The Arab News/YouGov US election MENA poll was conducted between Oct. 14 and 21 across 18 countries using YouGov’s pure research online panel.
The countries included were across three geographical areas — the GCC (Saudi Arabia, UAE, Kuwait, Qatar, Oman and Bahrain); North Africa (Egypt, Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Libya and Sudan); and the Levant (Syria, Jordan, Lebanon, Palestine, Iraq and Yemen). The sample size for an individual country was based on its population as a percentage of the total population of 18 countries. Eight of the 18 countries in which people were surveyed had a sample size of above 100, meaning the margin of error was less than 10 percent in these countries.
Countries such as Djibouti, Mauritania, Somalia and the Comoros Islands were not included in this study as Internet penetration rates are relatively low. Countries affected by war or conflicts — for example, Syria, Iraq and Yemen — had lower representation overall. Therefore, we had to oversample in some countries to amount to a total pan-Arab sample of 3,017.
Respondents were given the choice to fill out the survey either in Arabic or in English; however, 90 percent of the sample opted to complete the survey in Arabic.
Overall, respondents answered 16 close-ended questions around the current US elections, their views on pertinent issues and their preferred candidate. They were also given the choice to select the statement that is the closest to their point of view when it comes to an array of topics involving international affairs, US domestic policy and international issues of relevance to the Arab world. These statements are a direct reflection of what each US candidate has supported throughout each of their campaigns.
To analyze the results to these questions we weighted the data equally among nationals of the GCC, North Africa and the Levant to provide each nationality group with an equal say on these important issues. The samples are therefore directly representative of the national population in each country, not the total size of the population in each country.
There was a near-even gender split among the respondents, with 49 percent female and 51 percent male. By region, 61 percent of the respondents came from North Africa, 21 percent from the GCC, and 18 percent from the Levant. Half the respondents were in their 20s, with 6 percent below that age, 27 percent between 30 and 39, 11 percent in their 40s, and 7 percent aged 50-plus.