Politics & Elections Blog

Take Part in MSNBC’s Hangout On Air Series about Marriage Equality

2013-06-14T11:25:00.000-07:00

Posted by Sally Simms, Google+ Partnerships

This month, the Supreme Court will likely rule on the federal Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) and California’s Proposition 8, marking a historic moment for the issue of marriage equality in the United States.

In anticipation of these monumental decisions, +MSNBC will host a series of Google+ Hangouts On Air surrounding marriage equality and the Supreme Court cases beginning this Monday, June 17. The series of four Hangouts On Air, hosted by MSNBC anchors Thomas Roberts, Chris Hayes, Steve Kornacki and Andrea Mitchell, will bring together experts, celebrities, and members of the Google+ community who will be affected by the court’s decisions in a conversation about the implications of these historic rulings.

+MSNBC Hangouts On Air on the DOMA and Prop. 8 decisions:

Monday, June 17, 12:15PM ET: What Does This All Mean?
Tuesday, June 18, 12:15PM ET: Changing Your Community
Wednesday, June 19, 12:15 PM ET: Both Sides of the Aisle
Monday, June 24, 2:15 PM ET: From Hollywood to Your Hometown

We look forward to having you join the discussions with MSNBC, and taking part in the community conversation by using #MarriageEquality on Google+.

Secretary of State John Kerry kicks off “Hangouts at State” series on Google+

2013-04-15T09:12:00.001-07:00

Posted by Ramya Raghavan, Google+ Politics and Causes

Over the past year, Google+ has been used across the globe to connect people and enable free expression—from Syria Deeply, an independent news site which regularly uses Google+ and Hangouts to report about the crisis in Syria to Tom Fletcher, the British Ambassador to Lebanon, who issues dispatches from one country to another via Hangout.

Today, the U.S. Department of State is building on this trend by announcing a new series of discussions called “Hangouts at State.” Each month, these conversations will bring people together across global boundaries to discuss the most pressing U.S. foreign policy issues, like democracy promotion, human rights, counterterrorism efforts, economic development, climate change and drug interdiction.

The series kicks off on Friday, April 19 with a Hangout with U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, entitled “The U.S. in the World: What’s In It for Us” and moderated by NBC’s Chief Foreign Affairs Correspondent Andrea Mitchell. The Secretary will be joined by a group of Americans to discuss the impact of U.S. foreign policy on people at home.

Tune in on Friday at 1 p.m. E.T. to watch the conversation unfold, and keep your eye on the Google Politics and Elections page for news about the next “Hangout at State.”

Join the Conversation About Same-Sex Marriage on Google+

2013-03-19T14:25:00.003-07:00

Posted by Ramya Raghavan, Google+ Politics Team

In exactly one week, the Supreme Court will begin hearing oral arguments on the issue of same-sex marriage. It’s been a hot topic and there will no doubt be a flurry of activity related to the cases. Recently on Google+, we’ve seen a variety of posts about this issue and the community is just getting warmed up.

Starting tomorrow at 2 p.m. EDT, you can view a series of Google+ Hangouts exploring the issues related to the same-sex marriage debate. The “State of our Unions” Hangout series will include Washington Post journalists and writers such as Chris Cillizza, Nia Malika-Henderson, Jonathan Capehart, Liz Tenety and Robert Barnes as well as participating organizations The Advocate, The Center for American Progress, The Family Equality Council, Gay & Lesbian Advocates & Defenders, The Heritage Foundation, SCOTUSblog, and Third Way (#stateofourunion).

State of our Unions hosted by The Washington Post

March 20 - Tell it to me straight: The facts behind the cases
March 21 - Evolving Conversations: Is this the new civil rights movement?
March 22 - Keeping Faith: The role religion plays in the gay marriage debate
March 26 - Getting Real: What are the real-life impacts of these decisions?
March 27 - Arguments made -- now what?

The Pride Plus Google+ Community will also cover the topic with “At Last? A Marriage Equality Hangout Series”, taking your questions and debating them among their panel of activists and LGBT nonprofits (#Time4Marriage).

At Last? A Marriage Equality Hangout Series hosted by Pride Plus

March 22 - Why “Marriage” Matters
March 25 - Real Couples, Real Stories
March 28 - If we win? If we lose?

So whether you're a political junkie or just want to express your opinion, join the conversation with other community members and experts who are passionate about the topic by using the above hashtags or #supremecourt and #gaymarriage.

Fireside Hangouts: Join President Obama on Google+ after the State of the Union

2013-02-11T04:20:00.002-08:00

When President Obama heads to a joint session of Congress tomorrow night, he’ll be honoring the 200-year old tradition of delivering the State of the Union to Congress and the American people. Two days later, the President will turn to Google+ to continue a more recent tradition, by taking questions online after his speech. You can tune in to the Hangout this Thursday at 4:50 p.m. ET.

Much like the Fireside Hangouts held by Vice President Biden and Domestic Policy Director Cecilia Munoz over the past few weeks, the President’s Fireside Hangout will include a group of people who regularly discuss important issues of the day online. During the conversation, the selected participants will ask the President their own questions—but we’d also like to hear from you before the Hangout. To let the President know what’s on your mind, head to the White House YouTube channel and submit a video or text question. You can submit or vote on questions you’d like to hear him address until 11:59 p.m. ET on Wednesday, February 13.

Looking for inspiration for your question? Watch the President’s State of the Union speech on YouTube tomorrow night at 9 p.m. ET, as well as the Republican response from Senator Marco Rubio directly afterwards.

Then tune in to Thursday’s Fireside Hangout on the White House Google+ page or YouTube channel for a unique online discussion between the President and the American people on Google+.

Posted by Ramya Raghavan, Google+ Politics

Exploring the Digital Election

2012-12-12T11:10:00.002-08:00

Last week, Google and CNN hosted 300 campaign operatives and journalists to discuss how political campaigns broke new ground in 2012 using the internet to fundraise, persuade, and mobilize with unprecedented targeting and measurement. The "Exploring the Digital Election" panels featured Andrew Bleeker, Digital Director for Obama for America, Zac Moffatt, Digital Director for Romney for President, as well as representatives from Facebook, Twitter, leading US pollsters and political journalists.

Posted by the Google Politics & Elections Team

Digital Lessons Learned from 2012

2012-12-10T09:20:00.000-08:00

Posted by: Rob Saliterman (R Team), Evan Rowe (D Team) and Luke Rodehorst (IE Team) Google Politics and Elections Team

Last week, Google and CNN convened more than 300 campaign operatives and journalists to discuss how political campaigns broke new ground this year in using the internet to fundraise, persuade, and mobilize with unprecedented targeting and measurement. The event, “Exploring the 2012 Digital Election,” featured the Obama and Romney campaigns’ digital masterminds, but it’s important to also recognize the innovative strategies and tactics of down-ballot campaigns and issue advocacy groups.

Google’s “Digital Compilation from the 2012 Campaign Cycle” booklet contains eight case studies on how the internet has revolutionized politics.

Here are four key examples from groups that set a new standard in online political advertising:

1. Delivering Maverick PAC’s Message to the Right Audience
Maverick PAC, led by Co-Chairs George P. Bush and Jay Zeidman, is engaging next generation Republican leaders from business, politics and law to build a national network. To gain traction with a younger audience and maximize visibility, Maverick PAC turned to YouTube to tell their story. By partnering with Story Partners -- a DC public affairs firm -- they maximized the exposure to the target audiences. Read the full case study here.

2. Ami Bera went up early to avoid the noise and define the candidates
Dr. Ami Bera ran for Congress in 2010, losing a close race in the Sacramento suburbs. In 2012, with voters inundated with messages from dozens of candidates and ballot propositions, as well as statewide redistricting, guaranteed a tighter race. But in an area with many competitive races and proposition campaigns, the Bera campaign knew traditional media alone would be insufficient to communicate with voters effectively. So they turned to digital to extend the reach and frequency of their offline ads and reach key audiences efficiently. Read the full case study here.

3. Click-to-Call-Congress
As the U.S. Senate considered legislation critical to the clean coal industry this spring, the American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity (ACCCE) sought ways to mobilize grassroots supporters of the legislation across the country to make their voices heard. Partnering with social media marketing firm New Media Strategies, ACCCE used numerous Google tools, including click-to-call mobile advertising, to connect constituents with their Senators. Read the full case study here.

4. Extending the Reach of TV with a complimentary online video strategy on YouTube
Priorities USA Action, the leading Super PAC in support of President Barack Obama, turned to online ads in order to outmaneuver their better-funded opponents: Republican Super PACs American Crossroads, Crossroads GPS, and Restore Our Future. Working closely with agency Global Strategy Group, Priorities developed an efficient and effective YouTube video and Google search strategy to re-elect the President of the United States. Read the full case study here.

New study: Voters tuning in earlier, find Internet the most reliable for candidate info

2012-12-05T12:22:00.000-08:00

Cross-Posted by Karl Agne, Founding Partner GBA Strategies and Robert Blizzard, VP Public Opinion Strategies

[From time to time we invite guests to blog about initiatives of interest, and are very pleased to have Karl Agne of GBA Strategies and Robert Blizzard of Public Opinion Strategies join us here. – Ed.]

New post-election research conducted by GBA Strategies and Public Opinion Strategies in Colorado -- a critical swing state in 2012 and 2014 -- contains several key lessons for those seeking to understand not just what happened in 2012, but what this election means for 2014 and beyond. First, the traditional campaign timeline for communicating with voters - slowly building communications volume and television point levels to reach a crescendo in the final weeks of the campaign - is history. This research examined not just when voters tuned in to the campaign, but also when they tuned out. The lesson - voter engagement peaks in September and early October; by the final week of the campaign, more than 1-in-3 voters have stopped following congressional campaigns completely.

Of course, persuadable voters still break much later, forcing campaigns to weigh the relative importance of turnout messages geared toward base voters with persuasion targeted to a much smaller (but often decisive) universe of swing voters who engage in the campaign much later, make their voting decisions much later, and wait much longer to vote. And that leads to inevitable questions of how to reach these very different groups of voters in the most effective and efficient manner possible. Increasingly, campaigns are turning to online tools to answer those questions. This poll shows that voters now identify the Internet as the most reliable source of information for learning about the candidates in a congressional campaign and gathering the information they need to make their decision.

Learn more about this new study and read the memo here.

On Politics: Google Consumer Surveys Measure Up

2012-11-16T08:00:00.000-08:00

As analysts continue sifting through the winners and losers of the 2012 campaign, one thing has become clear: online market research and polling has well and truly entered the mainstream.

When we launched Google Consumer Surveys back in April, we pledged to bring a fast, accurate, and affordable way to conduct market research. Over the course of the presidential race, we looked at voter preferences on issues, conventions, candidates, and even the outcomes of debates. Our service is powered by the voices of web users, like you, who answer anonymous polling questions.

So how’d you all do in your first election with us? Pretty spectacularly.

Nate Silver, of NYT’s FiveThiryEight blog - who many consider to be the ‘high priest’ of statistical polling data - concluded that Google Consumer Surveys was the #1 most accurate poll online and the #2 most accurate poll overall, surpassing many well-established and recognized traditional polls. Further, the Pew Research Center evaluated the tool in great detail said it will likely be an important addition to the research tool kit available to pollsters.

At the same time, your answers help support high quality websites that earn money from showing micro-surveys on their sites. Google Consumer Surveys run on top sites across the web. (For more on how the nuts and bolts of these surveys work check out this video). By answering questions, you’re helping to fund premium content - your favorite columnist, reporter, photographer, magazine or opinion-maker. These surveys support publishers such as Texas Tribune, Boone Newspapers, Digital First Media (Denver Post and other regional papers) and help to keep content online free.

But, political campaigns and publishers aren’t the only folks who are benefiting from Google Consumer Surveys. Academics, start-ups, non-profits and major consumer marketers are using the tool to improve their products, better understand their customers, and conduct detailed research.

With the holiday shopping season upon us, like a lot of you, we’ll be shifting some of our focus to helping understand consumer preferences around holiday gift buying. Taking what we learned from politics, we’ll work with marketers and partners to share trends and insights, and help our partners connect with their current and future customers.

If you can’t wait for our shopping-season results, why don’t you go ahead and run a survey of your own!

Posted by: Brett Slatkin on behalf of the Google Consumer Surveys Team

Google by the Numbers: The 2012 US Election

2012-11-15T10:36:00.000-08:00

Last week, more than 120 million Americans went to the polls to cast their vote for president, Congress, and hundreds of statewide and local races. Since we launched our Google Politics & Elections program in January at the Iowa Caucuses, we've seen unprecedented digital engagement in this election on Google and across the web. We wanted to share some stats about how our products, including our Voter Information Tool and the Civic Information API, were used to find voter information like polling places, sample ballots, early voting sites, and voter ID requirements:

In the two weeks leading up to the election, we served over 23 Million voter information queries across our sites and third-party apps.
Over 100 developers built apps using the Civic Information API, including the League of Women Voters, Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights, and AT&T.
More than 600 sites embedded our Voter Information Tool, including CNN, the Huffington Post, and both the Democratic and Republican Congressional Campaign Committees.

We're thrilled to have been able to help millions of Americans find the information they needed to vote, both on Google and across the web. Now we're off to do the same in other countries like Ghana's elections next month and the Czech Republic, Italy, and Kenya next year.

Posted by Eric Hysen, Google Politics & Elections Team

2012 was the breakthrough year for digital persuasion across 4 screens

2012-11-12T10:14:00.000-08:00

The 2012 campaign will be remembered as the first four screen election.

The Internet has fundamentally transformed how voters receive information on candidates and issues. Access to political information no longer comes from one place, or one screen. That means that campaigns that adapted to this new reality - and adopted a four-screen strategy to persuade and connect with voters - more often than not won. The trend is clear: those who invest in online win. In fact, 9 of the top 11 US Senate races who spent more online with Google won on Tuesday.

Let’s look at how the four screens worked together in the closing days of the race.

Of the four screens, mobile’s role in political campaigning grew the most from 2008. Voters use their devices to stay up to date about key issues, look up quick answers, or find last-minute information like where to vote. Candidates who recognized these behaviors and developed mobile strategies to reach people on their smartphones were able to drive voter interaction. Specifically, we found that as election day neared, voters turned to their mobile devices for election-related information.

Total US Mobile searches related to finding a voting location increased by 164% from Monday to Tuesday. This trend was even more pronounced in battleground states.

Quite a few voters leave their homes on Election Day and are still undecided.

On the day of the election, throughout the US, the majority of Obama-related searches occurred on mobile devices as millions of Americans stood in line and travelled to their polling places.

Search, especially on larger screens like laptops, is an essential voter tool for fact-checking and education. It is also a critical campaign tool for for rapid-response and persuasion. We saw campaigns and issue advocacy groups use search to respond, educate or even ‘bracket’ events in real-time. There was a real shift toward voters using (and trusting) the Web as a fact-checker, especially around offline events like debates. 64% of voters use the Internet to verify or “fact check” a claim made by a candidate or issue group and it is clear that it is key to formulating voting decisions.

In Maryland, where same sex marriage legislation was passed, total searches for gay marriage increased by 482% from the same period last year.
Since April 2011, when Romney officially entered the race, over 700,000 videos mentioning Obama or Romney have been uploaded to YouTube, and these videos account for 2.8 billion views.

Television - especially around live campaign events like debates - is a powerful catalyst to drive action on digital devices. Savvy campaigns built presences across all screens to stay connected with voters that are driven online by TV to fact-check or research.

77% of TV viewers use another device at the same time in a typical day. (Google Multi-Screen Research)

And, finally, while tablets are still a relatively new device, they distinguished themselves as an important tool this election. The most notable role that tablets played was as a couch companion, helping voters find more information and react to the things they saw on TV. While this TV + Tablet multi-screening was the most mainstream behavior we are also seeing a growing number of people who are turning to tablets first to consume news and find information.

During the second Presidential Debate, energy-policy related searches on tablets spiked by 359% immediately after the question about gas prices. This shows how people reach for their tablets in response to things on TV.

Campaigns who don’t come to grips with these changing voter behaviors will have a harder time giving that victory speech on Election Night. Campaigns who go online and develop a multi-screen approach to persuading and connecting with voters will win. It has never been more clear that the road to victory requires a four screen strategy.

Posted by: Jennifer Gross on behalf of the Politics & Elections Team

Making it easier to find polling places after Superstorm Sandy

2012-11-05T14:38:00.001-08:00

Cross-posted from the Official Google.org blog

While Americans prepare to go to the polls on Tuesday, election officials are completing last-minute moves of dozens of polling places in areas affected by Superstorm Sandy.

Google is making this updated polling place information available through our own tools, such as the Voting Information Tool and search onebox, and also making it available to other developers and technology partners through the Google Civic Information API.

One of our API users, Mobile Commons, built a custom instance of an SMS-based polling place locator to allow voters to send a text for the latest information. New Jersey voters can text "WHERE" to 877-877, while New York voters can text "NYCVOTES” to 877-877 for updated locations. New Jersey Governor Chris Christie and New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg have referenced the tool at recent news conferences.

The League of Women Voters, the Lawyers Committee on Civil Rights, AT&T, and Foursquare are working quickly to help affected voters find their polling place. Whether you’re in New York City or Cedar Rapids, Iowa, we’re all doing our best to ensure you can access the information you need to vote.

Posted by Eric Hysen, Google Politics & Elections Team

Get Ready to Vote with Google

2012-10-29T14:57:00.002-07:00

Every four years in the United States, people prepare to head to the polls and increasingly search for information about how to register to vote, where to vote and who is on their ballot. Even though it is 2012, important voting information is disorganized and hard to find on the Internet. To help voters research candidates and successfully cast their ballot on Election Day, we’ve launched our new Voter Information Tool.

You can enter your address to find information on your polling place, early vote locations, ballot information with links to candidates’ social media sites and voting rules and requirements. The tool is easy to embed on any website and is open source so developers can modify it to create custom versions. We're working with a number of media partners to ensure the tool is accessible across the web, and partners like Foursquare and AT&T are doing great work building apps on our Civic Information API.

We hope this tool will help make getting to the polls and casting your ballot as simple as possible.

Posted by Jesse Mwaura, Google Politics & Elections Team

Comedy Central's Indecision 2012 Caption Competition

2012-10-24T12:20:00.004-07:00

This week Comedy Central relaunched its Indecision2012 caption competition. We collaborated with them to add little extra magic, so that now you can use the tool to make your own memes and share them socially on the web.

Empowering individuals with information is at the core of Google’s mission, and the the Indecision2012 caption competition is a great way to get people sharing and talking about politics and democracy. It’s easily accessible, and helps to engage with the election in a fun way.

Comedy Central's Indecision is the network’s digital hub for election news and political comedy. With a website, daily blog, photo galleries, original video, mobile apps and social media, Comedy Central's Indecision finds the funny in politics and puts it everywhere you are.

Google is committed to civic engagement and using technology to get people involved in the 2012 election. We look forward to watching the best memes go viral as people share them across the web.

Go check out the competition at www.indecisionforever.com/caption-challenge. Make a meme, enter the competition, and share the fun!

Posted by the Google Politics & Elections Team

Dive into election data with the CNN/Google Campaign Explorer

2012-10-19T08:49:00.001-07:00

Election Day in the United States is just three weeks away and campaigns at all levels are ramping up for the home stretch. With Election Day just around the corner, there will be an increased barrage of campaign ads, fundraising requests, and visits from the candidates. Today, in collaboration with CNN, we're launching the Campaign Explorer to help you make sense of it all.

The Campaign Explorer lets you visualize ad spending, fundraising, and candidate travel from the presidential campaigns on the electoral map. You can dive into data for a state, compare multiple states, and then save and share snapshots with your own insights. Here's a snapshot we created comparing travel and ad spending across three major battleground states - Ohio, Virginia, and Florida:

At Google we're passionate about using technology to open up data and make it more useful, and we hope the Campaign Explorer will help do that for some election data. We're thrilled to partner with CNN to make this possible. CNN brought a wealth of campaign information and years of journalistic expertise, and we made use of the latest web technologies in HTML5 to present this data in a new and engaging way.

Be sure to share your snapshots on Google+ and mention +Google Politics & Elections and we'll reshare the most interesting. You can learn more about what we're doing for the US election and others worldwide at google.com/elections.

Posted by Eric Hysen, Google Politics & Elections Team

During debates voters turn to mobile for instant answers

2012-10-18T11:22:00.000-07:00

Posted by: Adam Grunewald, Politics & Elections Team and Mobile Ads Marketing

While it’s easy to get caught up by the passion and finger pointing in Tuesday night’s debate, it’s important to remember the real purpose of a presidential debate - educating and informing the American people.

We wanted to understand how viewers use their smartphones and tablets as ‘second screens’ to research and fact-check topics during and after the debate. So we took a look at debate-related search queries coming from mobile devices on Tuesday and found that:

Mobile has become a central component of this year’s election: 2,000% increase in debate-related searches on mobile in 2012 vs. 2008
Mobile helps voters find spur-of-the-moment information: 3,300% increase in searches related to Libya immediately after the question about presidential accountability for the Benghazi attack
Mobile is used simultaneously with television: 47% of Tuesday’s elections-related mobile searches occurred during and immediately after the debate

Mobile devices: our couch companionsAlready this election season, we’re seeing voters research issues, find information, and even register to vote across desktop, smartphone, tablet and television. This data reinforces the need for political campaigns to engage voters across all four screens - especially during key campaign events. With the portability of mobile devices, many people are using them while watching television to search for follow-up information or to fact-check. The debates were a great example of this mobile multi-tasking as people turned to their mobile devices in real time to find more information about the comments and issues raised by the candidates. Looking at a timeline of searches for a specific issue like energy throughout the debate, we can see that the spikes in searches occur in direct response to specific conversation sparks on television.

(Click image above for larger version)

Immediate informationIn addition to being used in front of the television, people turn to their mobile devices when they’re looking for immediate information. The “always-on” nature of tablets and “always with you” nature of smartphones make them quick and easy to pick up for a spontaneous search. During the debate we saw enormous spikes in mobile queries immediately after panelist questions or statements from the candidates. For example, within one minute of Mary Fallano’s question to Romney about his tax plan, tax-related mobile searches increased by over 500%. This is true not just while watching the debates, but also throughout the day as people use their smartphones while talking about politics with friends, listening to the news, or even after coming across an offline ad.

Four screens to victoryAs we enter the final weeks of the presidential election, digital devices will be key to helping voters decide which candidate is right for them. It’s a well-known fact that one of the keys to a successful candidacy is controlling the message. What’s clear in today’s multi-screen world, is that controlling the message on any issue requires that a candidate have a strategy to engage with voters across all four screens.

Internet is Key Channel to Reach Persuadable Voters Finds New Study from Google, GSG and POS

2012-10-10T14:39:00.000-07:00

Cross-Posted by Julie Hootkin VP, Global Strategy Group and Robert Blizzard VP, Public Opinion Strategies

[From time to time we invite guests to blog about initiatives of interest, and are very pleased to have Julie Hootkin of Global Strategy Group and Robert Blizzard of Public Opinion Strategies join us here. – Ed.]

As the 2012 campaign enters its final weeks, new research suggests that the Internet offers candidates a real opportunity to reach the most sought-after voters – those who have not yet made up their minds. According to a survey of 500 persuadable voters in Florida, Ohio, Nevada, Virginia and Wisconsin conducted between October 2 and October 7, 2012 by Global Strategy Group and Public Opinion Strategies, the Internet is an increasingly important resource when it comes to getting information about this year’s campaigns and elections.

Read the full memo here.

Google and YouTube at the 2012 Presidential Debates

2012-10-03T13:02:00.004-07:00

The presidential debates have generated some of the most memorable moments from the campaign trail. From a digital perspective, we’ve come along way from the first televised presidential debate in 1960 to the first debate livestream in 2012. Here are three ways you can use Google to discover and engage with the latest debate coverage and claim your front row seat to all four general election debates.

FOLLOW TRENDS - Healthcare? Jobs? Immigration? What are Americans searching for around the debates? Find the latest Google search trends and consumer insights on google.com/elections or by following the Google Politics & Elections page. We’re also on the ground at each debate location partnering with the Consumer Electronics Association (CEA) to highlight key trends on our "Insights from the 2012 Debates" media wall.

WATCH LIVE - Watch the livestream at youtube.com/politics via our partners at ABC News and catch what the YouTube Elections Hub partners -- ABC News, Al Jazeera English, BuzzFeed, Larry King, New York Times, Phil DeFranco, Univision and the Wall Street Journal -- are saying pre-and-post debate. Missed the debate? Check back on Thursday for full clips and highlights.

HANGOUT - Keep an eye on the our Google+ page for hangouts around the debates with the Washington Post, USA Today, Mitt Romney’s campaign, students from the University of Denver and many more. Join the conversations and share your thoughts by using #googlepolitics in your posts.

Let the debates begin!

Posted by Natalie Vernon, Google Politics & Elections Team

Build apps for elections with the Google Civic Information API

2012-09-21T04:34:00.000-07:00

Cross-posted from the Google Developers Blog

Google’s mission is to organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful. To make it easier for you to build apps with voting information on the web, we are releasing our new Google Civic Information API. The API enables you to look up comprehensive voting information for an individual U.S. address, including polling place, early vote sites, contests, and local election official contact information. By releasing this API, we hope to unleash the creativity of the Internet and help you build innovative products that push civic information to your communities in interesting ways.

As you know, this type of information can change frequently as we get closer to Election Day, and we will make every effort to ensure we're returning timely and accurate data. We have also included contact information for local election officials in the API so voters can find the most accurate information.

While this API only includes voting information for elections in the U.S., we plan to expand to other countries and include other types of civic information. Please join the Google Civic Information API Forum for updates on the data available and check out the Google Politics & Elections page to find more information about the work we are doing around the election and our international elections programs.

You can get started here through the Google APIs Explorer. The API is available now, but please note that full information isn't yet available for the November 6th General Election. We expect to be able to provide full live data around the middle of October, as it becomes available. For now, we recommend building your applications using the test data we provide. We'll be using the API to power our own election tools over the coming weeks, including an embeddable app anyone can use on their site, and we're looking forward to seeing the applications you come up with!

The Civic Information API replaces our previous Google Election Center API, which will be turned down after January 1, 2013.

For questions, comments, and to showcase your apps using the API, we encourage you to use the Google Civic Information API Forum.

Posted by Chetan Sabnis, Google Politics & Elections Team

Hanging out at the 2012 Political Conventions

2012-08-24T08:05:00.000-07:00

With just 76 days until Election Day, next week begins a flurry of political activity as the national conventions get underway. And while very few people can make the trip to the Republican National Convention in Tampa, FL., or the Democratic National Convention in Charlotte, N.C., Google+ is bringing the conventions straight to your laptops and mobile phones in a series of Google+ hangouts with the convention organizers and top media organizations.

Over the course of both conventions, you’ll be able to tune in live via Google+ hangout, hearing from and talking with top media outlets who are on hand to make sense of all the politics. Check out The official Google+ pages for the Republican National Convention (#RNC2012) and DemConvention (#DNC2012) to get the latest news. Also, tune into our Google Politics & Elections page every day to see live Google+ hangouts with the following media partners:

We’re looking forward to making this year’s conventions the most interactive ever. In addition to these hangouts with top Google+ partners, we’ll have a few surprises up our sleeves to give you never-before-seen access to the conventions. Stay tuned for more in the coming days as things heat up in Tampa and Charlotte!

Posted by Steve Grove, Google+ Head of Community Partnerships Team

The U.S. election, live on YouTube

2012-08-22T09:00:00.000-07:00

(Cross-posted from the Official YouTube Blog)

Today we’re introducing the YouTube Elections Hub, a one-stop channel for key political moments from now through the upcoming U.S. election day on November 6. You can watch all of the live speeches from the floor of the upcoming Republican and Democratic National Conventions, see Google+ Hangouts with power brokers behind the scenes, and watch a live stream of the official Presidential and Vice Presidential debates. You won’t need to go anywhere else for the must-watch moments of this election cycle...they’re all happening here live.

In addition to videos from politicians and parties, a diverse range of news organizations—both established names in media and sought-after new voices—are sharing their coverage of the political process on the new hub. You’ll find live and on-demand reporting and analysis from ABC News, Al Jazeera English, BuzzFeed, Larry King, New York Times, Phil DeFranco, Univision and the Wall Street Journal. Each will put their own stamp on the Presidential race—from the conventions to the debates to election night.

Of course, we’ll have special live coverage around the Republican National Convention from August 27 to 30, the Democratic National Convention from September 4-6, the Presidential and Vice Presidential debates in October, and election night. Bookmark the Elections Hub now for a front row seat along the road to the White House.

Posted by Olivia Ma, YouTube News Manager, recently watched "Sarah Palin Gives Obama Advice to Win the Election - The DeFranco US Election Weekly Recap #1."

All Politics is Local: Introducing Congressional District Targeting for Google AdWords

2012-08-03T09:33:00.000-07:00

Cross-posted on the Inside AdWords Blog

In his autobiography, Former House Speaker Tip O’Neill famously said “All politics is local”. With all 435 seats up for election in brand new Congressional Districts this November, that adage rings even more true for House candidates running this fall. Through the redistricting process that takes place every 10 years, every district takes on a new shape - with new voters. This makes reaching the right voters with the right message even tougher.

Starting today, in addition to targeting specific zip codes, we’re enabling an even more useful solution that allows political campaigns to reach voters within a specific Congressional District.

Say you are running for Congress in the 6th District of Maryland - which features a highly publicized race between Ten-term incumbent Rep. Roscoe Bartlett and Montgomery County businessman John Delaney. The 6th is located in western Maryland, and has been a longtime GOP stronghold, but was drastically reshaped by redistricting which has made it more competitive.

Barlett and Delaney’s campaigns are waging a battle in the oddly shaped district that has voters in many zip codes, towns and communities looks like this:

(This map embedded above is courtesy of data from Azavea)
As campaigns know, reaching these households in an effective manner with traditional means takes time and - importantly - valuable resources. This district is a great example - it includes voters who live in the Washington D.C. media market. But, as you can see from the map, buying TV ads in DC won’t reach your voters in the 6th District.

Now, with congressional district targeting in AdWords, campaigns can quickly and easily target their search, display, mobile and video ads *solely* within that particular district’s border. You can start by heading into AdWords and selecting your District number from the location menu populated with district information in simple Google Maps format, prepared by Azavea. Build your ad and you’re on your way.

We’ve built a sizeable team that is working around the clock to help all candidates get the most from their online advertising efforts. Congressional District Targeting in AdWords is just one more way that we’re working hard to deliver better ads for users and voters and better tools for political campaigns.

By working across all four screens, digital ads are highly accountable, precise, and continually evolving. Google’s complete solution helps thousands of political campaigns in all shapes and sizes make the web work for them. Our products are designed to work together, enabling campaigns do more with less online. Head over to the Four Screens to Victory site to learn more about how your campaign can win the moments that matter.

Posted by: Charles Scrase, Google Politics & Elections Team

How November Will Be Won: By the Numbers

2012-07-24T08:20:00.000-07:00

Earlier this year, we introduced “Four Screens to Victory”, a framework for political campaigns that outlined how Google can help make the web work for candidates and issues groups up and down the ballot. With these digital platforms, campaigns can build their organizations, define the issues, persuade the electorate and - importantly - get the vote out and win the moment that matters in November on Election Day.

Access to political information no longer comes from one place - or one screen. In just the four years since the last presidential election, the continued growth of the web and the proliferation of mobile devices has radically transformed when, where, and how voters access political information.

The numbers are in, and savvy political campaigns need to take notice. The rules of reaching voters have changed and new approaches are warranted because:

More than 80% of eligible voters are online
Similarly, 83% of mobile phone owners are registered voters
1 out of every 3 likely voters in November say that they didn’t watch tv in the past week
Voters are spending more media time on their mobile devices than newspapers & magazines combined

(Click the infographic below to get a larger version)

If you’re as inspired as we are by some of the data and the implications on your own political campaign, check out the “Four Screens to Victory” site to spark some ideas of your own and see how you can make the web work for your campaign.

Posted by: David Kaufman, Google Politics & Elections Team

November Is Noisy... So Start Talking Now

2012-07-23T07:10:00.000-07:00

The conventional wisdom for political campaigns has been to save as much money for as long as possible, and then to spend it all communicating with voters down the stretch right near Election Day. But this year that's started to change. The most sophisticated campaigns are investing earlier....Now those of you political insiders know that there's some precedent here: Paul Begala hangs part of Clinton's '96 victory on the campaign's ability to define Dole early, Karl Rove and company successfully deployed this strategy against John Kerry, and the Obama campaign has been seemingly operating out of the same playbook, attempting to define Mitt Romney in an ad blitz that began last April. But the levels of early spending this cycle are unprecedented. And with good reason.

The latest research points out that voter influence starts early: 44% of voters saying they research candidates and issues more than four months out from Election Day (Shopper Sciences). And search query data backs this up.

In 2008, we saw that over 60% of searches on policy-related terms for President Obama (like “Obama policies” and “Obama economic plan”) came well ahead of Election Day and before October 1st. While some of the spikes are attributable to the primary with Hillary Clinton, the steady baseline of Obama searches indicates that voters were researching, learning, and making up their minds' about the candidate long before October.

*Google Internal Data

And this isn’t just on a national level; the trend is also strong in the states. The 2008 Franken/Coleman Senate race in Minnesota was one of the hottest in the country and voters also got started early in their research. Fully 70% of searches on the candidates’ names came before October 1st.

This cycle, early searching has been dramatically higher than the 2008 race. Searches for Governor Romney from June 27, 2011 - July 15, 2012 are three times higher than searches for Senator McCain in the same period four years ago--a sign that Obama and his allies are attempting to capitalize on in their move to define their opponent early, when many voters are making their initial assessments.

McCain data: June 25, 2007 - July 13, 2008
Romney data: June 27, 2011 - July 15, 2012
*Google Internal Data
Investing early is a growing trend in other industries as well - most notably in the retail space where stores are opening their doors and upping their promotions well in advance of Black Friday. And guess what? 34% of people now start their holiday shopping before October (Shopper Sciences). Take two other monumental events this year - the Super Bowl and the Olympics. Pre-released Super Bowl spots from Chevy and VW scored millions of views on YouTube in advance of game day while Visa and Coke Olympics campaigns topped the Ad Age viral video chart in May -- a full 3 months before the summer games.

Why does it pay to be an early mover? For starters, it’s easier to break through. According to Politico, the 2012 cycle may go down in history as the most cluttered and expensive. Reaching engaged voters when they’re researching candidates, reading up on issues and forming opinions early just makes sense. Finally, you get more bang for your buck earlier. On average cost-per-view for Youtube TrueView advertising increased 267% in the 2010 Cycle in October 27 - November 2 compared to the three months prior.

Here are a few simple strategies to buy more efficiently and make an early investment count over time:

1. Capture the attention of early searchers by starting early
When voters are looking for information on candidates or important issues, search is the first place they turn. Help them find you fast by making your message stand out via search ads and then convert their interest into signups, volunteer hours, and donations. And with mobile search traffic on candidates skyrocketing from less than 1% of total queries in January 2008 to at least a quarter today, make sure you have a mobile-optimized website that makes it easy for smartphone and tablet users to connect with you.

*Google Internal Data

2. Complement your TV buy with online and mobile video
With 45% of likely voters nationwide saying that live TV isn’t their primary mode of consuming video (Shopper Sciences, April 2011), a multi-screen strategy is a must-have for a successful campaign. Online and mobile video not only extend a TV campaign message more efficiently over time, but deliver unique creative solutions like interactive video ads that can transform your campaign messages into engaging experiences to persuade voters.

3. Speak to key audiences continuously with targeted display advertising
You know who your key voters are, and targeted display ads are efficient enough that you can go up early and never come down. Whether you want to reach suburban moms, NASCAR dads or Hispanics, targeted display advertising lets you communicate continuously with your key audiences, wherever they are. Reaching your primary audiences in the right moments over time and across devices is an effective way to drive awareness, engagement and voter preference.

4. Remarket to engaged users
Remarketing lets you continuously re-engage people who previously visited your website or watched your online video. For example, you can tailor messaging specifically to those who may have visited an action page of your candidate’s website, but didn’t sign up or donate. Whether you’re looking to raise money, solicit volunteers or any other goal, remarketing should be a strategic component of every campaign.

5. Use social extensions to boost your search performance and discoverability
Start early and build your campaign’s social marketing efforts by sharing social annotations like +1 buttons between your ads and social network pages. This feature helps build a larger collection of social recommendations that improves ad performance. Ads displaying a +1 annotation have seen clickthrough rate uplifts of 5%-10% (Google Internal Data, 2012)

Posted by Jennifer Gross, Google Politics & Elections Team

Check out Google.com/elections in Spanish!

2012-07-03T12:33:00.001-07:00

Almost 20% of the US population speaks Spanish and as we get closer to Election Day access to information about candidates and important issues will be in high demand. We want to help make sure all American voters have the information they need to head to the polls at their fingertips.

So today, we’re expanding our language accessibility and providing the Google.com/elections site in Spanish. Now, when you go to Google.com/elections you will be able to choose “Spanish” from the language menu to get news content, trends, and all of our elections coverage in Spanish.

(click to enlarge)

Casi el 20% de la población de los Estados Unidos habla español y al acercarnos al día de las elecciones estadounidenses, la demanda por el acceso a la información sobre los candidatos y temas importantes va en aumento. Queremos asegurarnos de que todos los votantes estadounidenses tengan a su alcance la información que necesitan para dirigirse a las urnas.

Así que hoy estamos ampliando nuestra disponibilidad en idiomas y ofreciendo nuestro sitio Google.com/elections en español. Ahora, cuando vayas a Google.com/elections podrás elegir la opción "español" en el menú del idioma y ver el contenido de las noticias, las tendencias, y toda nuestra cobertura de las elecciones en español.

Posted by Jason Brooks, Google Politics & Elections Team

Track Veepstakes with our Trends Dashboard

2012-06-26T08:59:00.000-07:00

The summer before a Presidential election typically brings unending speculation about potential Vice Presidential picks. Veepstakes, as the process has commonly been referred to since 1988, has become a favorite topic of discussion among journalists and politicos. A Vice Presidential pick not only plays a big role in the campaign process, but also can have a profound impact on the democratic process. Theodore Roosevelt, Lyndon Johnson and George H.W. Bush are all Vice Presidents that have gone on to become Commander-in-Chief.

We are excited to partner with Washington Post’s Chris Cillizza and The Fix to launch our first Veepstakes Trends Dashboard to track the buzz around Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney’s potential VP pick. The Veepstakes dashboard allows you to take the web’s real-time political pulse by comparing potential VP candidates' YouTube video views, search traffic, and Google News mentions. You can even drill down and check out which potential nominee has been searched the most over the the last day, week or month.

Check back for updates and trends as Veepstakes speculation continues!

Posted by Chetan Sabnis and Jesse Mwaura, Google Politics and Elections Team