According to Google’s results, Obama and McCain will be the front-runners for their parties after today. The amount of Google searches for a candidate’s last name has directly correlated with the winner of that state in every primary and caucus to date.
From the Iowa Caucus on January 3rd to Maine’s Caucus on February 1st, the search trends for the candidates last names have directly correlated with their wins. So far, with our methodology we have been 100% accurate in determining the winner. We think we have a good chance of accurately predicting Today’s Results.
Here are the predictions:
| STATE | GOP | DEM |
| Alabama | Not enough data | Not enough data |
| Alaska | Not enough data | Not enough data |
| Arizona | Romney | Obama |
| Arkansas | McCain | Clinton |
| California | McCain | Obama |
| Colorado | Romney | Obama |
| Connecticutt | Mccain | Obama |
| Delaware | Not enough data | Not enough data |
| Georgia | McCain | Obama |
| Idaho | NA | Obama |
| Illinois | McCain | Obama |
| Kansas | NA | Not enough data |
| Massachussetts | Romney | Obama |
| Minnesota | McCain | Clinton |
| Missouri | McCain | Obama |
| Montana | Not enough data | NA |
| New Jersey | McCain | Obama |
| New Mexico | NA | Obama |
| New York | McCain | Obama |
| North Dakota | Not enough data | Not enough data |
| Oklahoma | McCain | Obama |
| Tennessee | McCain | Obama |
| Utah | Romney | Obama |
| West Virginia | Not enough data | NA |
Note: “Not Enough Data” indicates that there was not enough search data in Google Trends to create a graph. “NA” means the primary will take place at another date.
We don’t think it. Google Trends does.
I sure hope this isn’t how things play out. It’s pretty amazing how accurate Google Trends has been so far in predicting the outcome. Kudos for finding this.
You think Romney will beat McCain in ARIZONA? Are you nuts?
Hey ron guy,
We knew that a search for “Ron Paul” might skew Google’s results, because he has a rather common name. And since we were only searching based on last names, and also based on who we thought had the best chance of winning in the first place (Ron Paul doesn’t fit either category to create statistical significance) we left out Ron Paul.
As much as Ron Paul would not like to hear this, we chose the top 4 candidates who are most likely to win their party. There has been a huge internet push for Ron Paul from the beginning while we were looking for a more natural flow of search traffic. Additionally, if you look in specific regions, Ron Paul does not perform as well as you might think.
I for one hope that Romney does better than Google is predicting. But it’s scary how accurate it has been. Stay tuned for Feb. 8th when we find out the Google Trends data, and if it really can predict the winners.
Ron Paul ranks much better in Google Trends and he is not doing that well on the real results…
http://www.google.com/trends?q=Ron+Paul%2C+Romney%2C+McCain&ctab=0&geo=US&geor=all&date=mtd&sort=0
Great find. What is even more interesting are the lines below which follow the news and media about that name. Notice that the ordering is similar, does this imply that the more money you have and the more PR you get the better your election outcome will be?
That’s an interesting thought. The problem is, Clinton has spent the most so far in the Democratic party, and Romney has spent the most in the Republican Party. That’s total money spent though, not just on advertising or PR.
I think search traffic means , number of people who wants to know abt Obama rather than those who want Obama ….
I absolutely agree with that. However, we wanted to see if there was any correlation between the two. Come to find out, Google Trends was still 72% right which is better than some polling out there.
@RonGuy Interesting, but look closer at the lower graph and you will see that Ron Paul is getting little to no actual press coverage and that is what will be having a very influential affect on voters.
@neil Don’t sweat Mccain will win Arizona he has the steepest rising trend:
http://www.google.com/trends?q=clinton%2Cobama%2Cromney%2C+mccain&ctab=0&geo=US&geor=usa.az&date=ytd&sort=0
@ Nelson looks like you were wrong and I was right about Arizona
ps. if you are going to delete sensible comments don’t bother having an option to leave them.
@teddie and neil – it’s interesting that although McCain won the Arizona primary as expected, Romney put up a very strong showing in that state (34% compared to McCain’s 48%).
Also, if you look at the current Google trends data from Teddie’s link, it shows McCain pulled ahead of Romney in Google Trends as well. The data was just a few days behind so when Nelson and Adam did their research it was showing Romney ahead, but McCain surged ahead since the data was originally compiled.
I’m looking forward to the follow up post that will explain the results and compare with updated data to see if there are other states that saw a similar surge in searches for the eventual winner.
But you forgot about Huckabee:
http://www.google.com/trends?q=mccain%2Cromney%2Chuckabee&ctab=0&geo=US&geor=all&date=ytd&sort=0
seems Huckabee ranked consistently higher than both McCain and Romney since November.
@ mickey – if I’m reading that Google chart right, Huckabee lost his top spot in the search volume around Mid-January. I’m sure Huck does much better in certain states, though.
The reason for the skewed RON PAUL results is the fact that his name is a recent internet meme and is used to replace general greetings: –