Cinco de Mayo is on Sunday and CivicScience is interested to see who will be eating tacos and sipping on margaritas. We polled over 7,000 people over the last two weeks to find out who is planning to celebrate Cinco de Mayo. Here is some of the information we found:


24% of people are likely to celebrate Cinco de Mayo. So what does the likely Cinco de Mayo celebrator look like?

Demographics: When compared to people who are not at all likely to celebrate Cinco de Mayo, those who are likely to celebrate are 18% more likely to be female, 81% more likely to be 44 years old and under and 2X more likely to be 34 years old and under.  Those celebrating are 6X more likely to be Hispanic, 25% more likely to live in an urban area, 32% more likely to have a high income, 33% more likely to have a bachelor’s degree, and 80% more likely to be single, never married.

Media Consumption and Entertainment: People who are likely to observe the holiday are 2X more likely to go to the movies regularly and 42% more likely to watch NBC most often than people who are not at all likely to celebrate Cinco de Mayo.

Health and Lifestyle: The celebrators are 26% more likely to exercise regularly than people who are not planning on doing anything for the holiday.

Political Views and Finances: People participating in Cinco de Mayo activities are 46% more likely to describe the national economy as good, 32% more likely to be a registered Democrat, 50% more likely to approve of how President Obama is handling his job and are29% more likely to be somewhat concerned about gas and energy prices, when compared to those not planning to celebrate.

Internet Usage/Technology: The group of celebrators are 30% more likely to shop on the internet regularly, 18% more likely to spend more than 12 hours per week on the internet, 56% more likely to spend 5-15 hours per week on Facebook, 90% more likely to be Twitter members, 39% more likely to own an E-Reader, and 50% more likely to own a smartphone.

Next, we ran cross-tabs to see specifically how people who are “very likely” to celebrate behave when they are directly compared to those who are not at all likely to celebrate:

People who are very likely to celebrate are 36% more likely to be very concerned about climate change than people not planning to celebrate. 39% of people who are very likely to celebrate Cinco de Mayo make it a priority to purchase environmentally friendly products or services, which is 63% more likely than people who are not planning on celebrating the holiday.

Those who are very likely to celebrate are 11% more likely to be a member of social networking sites vs. people not celebrating. 45% of people very likely to celebrate Cinco de Mayo say that comments or recommendations on social media have the most influence on what they buy, where they eat, or the movies they watch, which is 41% more likely than people who are not at all likely to celebrate Cinco de Mayo.

Lastly, when looking at job happiness and travel, 65% of people very likely to celebrate Cinco de Mayo say they are at least somewhat happy in their current job, which is 30% more likely than those who will not be celebrating. The celebrators are 3.5X more likely to travel out of town once a week or more for business than people who will not celebrate.

Recap: Many of the people celebrating also went out for Mardi Gras and St. Patrick’s Day. They’re young, single professionals and we can make a good guess they will be at a bar taking advantage of Cinco de Mayo drink specials. 57% of the people say they believe they are more attractive than others their age and gender, so there’s a good chance they will upload pictures onto twitter or Instagram to document the day.  You may also see them using check-in apps to show where they are celebrating the holiday (even though some of them probably don’t know what they are celebrating). Finally, an easy way to pick them out- they are the ones with sombreros on taking tequila shots.

Enjoy Cinco de Mayo and have a great weekend!