• by Mark Walsh  @markfwal, April 17, 2012

New research from comScore and political data specialist i360 shows that left-leaning political sites like TalkingPointsMemo and DailyKos are frequented mostly by Democratic users, while right-leaning ones like DailyCaller and DrudgeReport have heavily Republican audiences. For example, Democrats accounted for 70% of total minutes spent on TalkingPointsMemo in February, while Republicans generated 65% of time spent on DailyCaller. No big surprises there.

But what about non-politically focused sites? The study found Democrats accounted for nearly half (49%) the total minutes spent on NYTimes.com, while Republicans were overrepresented on business sites like Dow Jones (46%) and BusinessInsider (51%). Politico.com, by contrast, was overwhelmingly favored by independents, who made up two-thirds of time spent on the site. Whether that means its political coverage is even-handed is another question.

comScore and i360, a database catering mainly to Republicans and conservative advocacy groups, revealed the research as part of their launch of a new joint service tracking online behavior according to political affiliation. Leveraging comScore’s Segment Metrix 2.0 solution, the new election-year analytics tool also lets advertisers profile audiences based on demographics, attitudes toward economic and social issues and other criteria like income and purchasing preferences.

Mobile ad network Jumptap also recently partnered with i360, as well as Catalist, to help provide political ad targeting on mobile devices.

Borrell Associates last month forecast that $159.2 million will be spent on digital ads and email in 2012—just 1.5% of the total $9.8 billion to go to TV, direct mail and other media.