Google search trends on campaigns in VA, NJ and NY

Jeff Quinton — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 20:09:26 +0000

I just wanted to consolidate my previous three posts on the governor’s races in New Jersey and Virginia along with the congressional race in New York. Links are below.

Search traffic in NY-23 for the past month
Search trends in Virginia Governor’s race
New Jersey Governor’s race search trends

Search traffic in NY-23 for the past month

Jeff Quinton — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 16:41:45 +0000

If you look at the graph below on the search traffic on Google in NY-23 for the past month you will see some interesting, but not necessarily unexpected trends. I found this data via Google Insights for Search. (Note: this search data is isolated to New York state only in the first chart below.)

Until October 14, Bill Owens was getting the most attention via Google searches in New York. About that date, searches for both Dede Scozzafava and Doug Hoffman started increasing. Later traffic proved that Hoffman was outpacing Scozzafava by a decent amount for the next few days.

Around October 18 and when Sarah Palin endorsed Hoffman, his traffic started a rapid ascent that has continued since then with other endorsements and national attention on the race. Searches for Scozzafava have declined since then. She is now at or below the same level of searches as Owens, who has seen a slow but steady increase in searches on his name in New York.

The next chart is the same as above for all of the United State instead of just for New York. No other state even approaches New York in the amount of search traffic on the 3 candidates’ names. Both Virginia (possibly NoVa?) and Texas have seen a lot of searches on Hoffman’s name.

Bing’s stats show similar trends for these candidates.

OnQ Social Media Consulting » NY-23

Google search trends on campaigns in VA, NJ and NY

Search traffic in NY-23 for the past month