Politics & Elections Blog

Hanging out with the candidates

2012-03-20T05:00:00.000-07:00

In American politics, there's nothing quite so frantic or fast-paced as a presidential campaign. Short campaign stops and relentless travel schedules can make it difficult for candidates to sit down with supporters and discuss the issues. Google+ Hangouts have made that a little bit easier, providing new ways for politicians, political organizations, advocates and campaigners to connect directly over video to share information online. We're excited to see more and more politicians use tools like these to engage voters.

Later today, Republican presidential candidate and former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney will host a Hangout with supporters on his Google+ page. Supporters will be able to ask the Governor questions about his campaign in the Hangout, or by posting them on Google+ with the hashtag #AskMitt. This hangout will kick-off a series of campaign Google+ Hangouts including all the GOP presidential candidates.

Be sure to tune into Governor Romney’s Google+ page at 2:45 PM ET to catch his live hangout with supporters.

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

How much do rising gas prices affect Google search interest?

2012-03-18T12:43:00.000-07:00

With gas prices up 17 percent since January 1, President Obama and his GOP opponents have been trading barbs over a president’s role in raising or lowering gas prices. As Republican advisor Dan Schnur put it, “Voters see gas prices up on signs every block when they drive home from work.”

We decided to take a look at nationwide search trends for the phrase [gas prices] since January 2011 and compared them to average gas prices over the same time period. We found that a rise in gas prices did cause a spike in searches, but that the volume of searches stabilized shortly afterward, even if there wasn’t a sharp drop in prices.

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Posted by Samantha Smith, Google Politics & Elections Team

The Search for President: Iowa to Alabama

2012-03-15T10:37:00.003-07:00

The battle for the GOP presidential nomination seems to be far from over. We took a look back at the primary race starting in Iowa running through last Tuesday's contests in Alabama, Hawaii, and Mississippi.

As each candidate has had his turn in the spotlight -- whether it was Santorum’s win in Iowa, Romney’s in New Hampshire, Gingrich’s in South Carolina, or Obama’s State of the Union address -- each event corresponded with a spike in nationwide search interest. In some cases, a rise in searches preceded a candidate’s win in a primary state (we recently showed Santorum leading the pack in Alabama and Mississippi searches).

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Posted by Natalie Vernon, Google Politics & Elections Team

Who's leading Google searches in Alabama and Mississippi?

2012-03-13T12:00:00.000-07:00

Today's GOP presidential primaries in the deep south are being watched closely. Recent polls have found Newt Gingrich and Mitt Romney neck and neck in both Alabama and Mississippi, with Rick Santorum trailing not far behind them.

According to Google Insights for Search, Mitt Romney and Rick Santorum have been the search traffic frontrunners over the last week, with Santorum leading the field in the last 2 days leading up to today's primaries. Newt Gingrich and Ron Paul have wrestled for third and fourth throughout the week.

Posted by Samantha Smith, Google Politics & Politics Team

What do Google search trends tell us about Super Tuesday?

2012-03-08T09:15:00.005-08:00

Following an exciting Super Tuesday, the Google Politics and Elections team decided to look at how each Republican candidate competed in the Super Tuesday states, in the categories of states won, Google Search interest, delegates won, and percentage of votes achieved. In six of the 10 states, the candidate who received the most search interest prior to Super Tuesday also won the state.

We also compared searches for the GOP candidates with searches for President Obama, who still commands the most national interest.

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Posted by Samantha Smith, Google Politics & Elections Team

Super Tuesday: Who’s ahead and what’s at stake?

2012-03-06T08:15:00.000-08:00

Today, voters in 10 states will head to their polling places to determine the allocation of 419 delegates to the remaining four GOP candidates. Last week, Gallup released the results of a new nationwide poll that found economic and unemployment issues to be the chief concerns of most voters. Healthcare and national security ranked not far behind while social issues and immigration trailed the pack.

In the graphic below, we provided a state-by-state comparison of search trends for the candidates and issue-related keywords for the past three days. While the economy and healthcare remained paramount across all Super Tuesday states, social issues like abortion and gay marriage ranked as the third most-searched terms in seven of them. Terrorism and national security ranked third only in Alaska, North Dakota, and Vermont. Among the candidates, Mitt Romney leads in searches for six of them, with Rick Santorum and Ron Paul split the rest. Ohio, the most closely-watched Super Tuesday state, is among those with Romney in the lead.

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Posted by Samantha Smith, Google Politics & Elections Team

Mapping the March to Tampa

2012-03-06T06:08:00.000-08:00

Super Tuesday has arrived! So far, 12 states have held caucuses or primaries to nominate a Republican presidential candidate in time for the RNC convention in Tampa this August. Today, 10 more states with 419 delegates at stake will get a chance to add their voices. From Alaska’s Bering Sea to the Georgia’s Golden Isles, voting will span five time zones and over 4,000 miles; by the time polling closes in Nome, AK, it’ll be 12 a.m. on the East Coast.

Our Politics & Elections team has mapped the results of every contest since Iowa, and now we’ve upgraded the visualization. The new map lets you track both the state-by-state numbers as well as the results by county, with delegate counts in addition to raw numbers and percentages from the AP. This auto-updating map will live on google.com/elections, and outlets subscribing to Associated Press election results can also embed it on their site.

We also have some other great tools to help you make sense of this year’s political scene. Our infographic gallery features Google Insights for Search data, much of which is broken down by state to make sense of regional variation. Follow the Google+ page for Hangouts on Air with prominent political reporters and daily insight. And if you just want to quickly look up how things are going, you’ll find fresh results in Google search on both desktop and mobile.

Posted by Jesse Friedman, Google Politics & Elections Team

The most-searched candidates in Super Tuesday states

2012-03-02T10:17:00.000-08:00

Next week, 10 states will determine the distribution of 437 delegates to the four remaining embattled GOP candidates. While Mitt Romney emerged from the Arizona and Michigan primaries still retaining his frontrunner status, Rick Santorum remains the most-searched candidate in 9 of the 10 Super Tuesday states over the past 30 days. Only in North Dakota does Ron Paul have the lead in searches.

We'll be posting more interesting candidate and relative search trends as we get closer to Super Tuesday.

Posted by Samantha Smith, Google Politics & Elections Team

Santorum surging in AZ, MI, and national Google searches

2012-02-28T12:58:00.000-08:00

Voters are hitting the polls today to vote in the Arizona and Michigan primaries. While most pollsters agree that Mitt Romney maintains a comfortable lead in Arizona, polls show him and Rick Santorum in a tight race in Michigan

According to Google Insights for Search, however, Santorum leads Romney in Arizona, Michigan, and national searches over the past week.

Posted by Samantha Smith, Google Politics & Elections Team

Top search trends from last night's GOP presidential debate

2012-02-23T08:36:00.000-08:00

What were Americans searching for during last night's GOP presidential debate? We monitored nationwide search trends during the two-hour event and found earmark to be the standout term of the evening.

Both earmark and the second trending term bridge to nowhere likely reference a heated discussion between Rick Santorum and Mitt Romney over government spending. Other trending debate searches included Title 10 - commonly known as Title X - and Romneycare.

We also looked at search increases for the four GOP candidates. We found that Gingrich experienced the largest increase in Arizona searches during the debate, as well as the largest increase nationally. But while Gingrich saw the largest percentage increase, Santorum led in overall national searches among the four candidates, followed by Ron Paul.

Posted by Natalie Vernon, Google Politics and Elections Team

Measuring the race for First Lady with Google searches

2012-02-14T09:04:00.000-08:00

While presidential candidates are usually the main campaign trail attraction, their spouses see a fair share of the spotlight. We wondered how the leading ladies compare in Google searches.

Even though Mitt Romney leads the nation in search traffic, Newt Gingrich's wife Callista ranks first among the candidates' significant others for the last 30 days. Ann Romney comes in second, followed by Karen Santorum and Carol Paul.

Happy Valentine's Day from the Google Politics & Elections team!

Posted by Samantha Smith, Google Politics & Elections Team

Visualizing Santorum’s surge in Colorado, Minnesota, and Missouri

2012-02-08T13:07:00.000-08:00

Yesterday, Rick Santorum swept all three primary and caucus states in his ongoing battle for the GOP presidential nomination. As the Washington Post noted, Santorum campaigned only minimally in Florida and Nevada, instead placing much of his efforts in Colorado, Minnesota, and Missouri, and the effort seems to have paid off.

In Google search trends for all three states, Santorum experienced a drastic surge in searches within the last 24 hours in each state. In fact, in two of the three states, Colorado and Minnesota, search trends mirrored the first and second place finishers. In the last week, Santorum searches have increased by 262% in Colorado, 515% in Minnesota, and 386% in Missouri. No other candidate achieved even half this percentage increase.

Posted by Samantha Smith, Google Politics & Elections Team

Who and what were Floridians searching for during last night's debate?

2012-01-27T07:38:00.000-08:00

Last night, the four remaining GOP candidates took the stage in Jacksonville, Florida for what was the last Presidential debate until February 22. With the Florida primary just days away and Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich neck and neck in the polls, the candidates sparred on a diverse list of topics, ranging from Romney and Gingrich’s ties to Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae to whether the US should establish a colony on the moon.

We at Google Politics & Elections closely monitored Florida search trends to determine which candidates and issues experienced a rise in search interest. In the first graphic below, we noted which search terms surged during the debate.

The second graphic displays which candidates experienced the strongest increase in searches over the course of the event.

Posted by Samantha Smith, Google Politics & Elections Team

In Raleigh, the Mayor-Elect Turned to the Web for the Win

2012-01-26T08:07:00.000-08:00

(From time to time we feature creative or interesting uses of our tools and ad platforms from campaigns and issue advocacy groups. These mentions and examples should not be construed as an endorsement. - Ed.)

Back in October of 2011, voters in Raleigh, North Carolina turned out and elected Nancy McFarlane as Mayor of Raleigh with 34,424 votes -- and 63,683 views on YouTube. Yep. Almost 2 video views for every vote.

As recently as 2008, online ads were largely the province of Presidential campaigns, with the Obama campaign in particular heralded for its success. In 2010, we chronicled how even more campaigns caught on to the web. Now in 2011 local candidates like McFarlane are taking advantage of new formats and targeting options on search, display, and online video to persuade voters, win the “Zero Moment of Truth” and drive turnout efforts.

Taken just last week, our South Carolina poll with Public Opinion Strategies further cements the notion that voters - of all types - are tuning in to web videos in big numbers. The data shows that more than one out of every three primary voters had watched a video online from a campaign - thus the idea of watching a web video on one's lunch break is the new 'prime time news'. It is plain to see that video on the web is not something that campaigns, up and down the ballot, can afford to ignore.

The Raleigh race - because it took place in an off-year - was expected to have low voter turnout. Sagar Sane, the campaign manager for Nancy McFarlane for Mayor decided that an added emphasis on online ads would allow the campaign to target likely voters and core demographics that they knew would be receptive to their message.

The first tool that the campaign utilized was TrueView Video Ads - a pre-roll video ad format that only became available to candidates in 2010. The McFarlane campaign was able to successfully target relevant content and audiences on YouTube--only paying when Raleigh-area voters actually chose to watch the ads, and making the format more effective and efficient for the race than broadcast or cable television could have been for the campaign.

But the campaign didn't stop with video. Beyond YouTube, they began to target sites, audiences, and specific content themes across the internet with the Google Display Network - utilizing display ads like the one pictured here above. That meant that when voters in Raleigh were reading online about local politics or looking for their polling place, they likely came across a relevant McFarlane ad. For a race that took just 34K votes to win, the McFarlane campaign ran a cost-effective digital campaign that received 3.8 million impressions on Google’ Display Network ads alone.

Google Search ads complemented this strategy, allowing the campaign to talk to voters as they researched the race and looked for information in the Raleigh area. When McFarlane won endorsements first from the outgoing mayor and then from the Raleigh News & Observer, the campaign was able to move quickly, spreading the word by bidding on local news searchers and linking directly to the endorsements, highlighting this important third-party validation.

With races all across the country heating up for the 2012 cycle, campaigns at every level are getting savvier about their online strategy. Like Nancy McFarlane, they’re utilizing new digital tactics to win the ‘Zero Moment of Truth’--and win their elections.

Posted by: Andrew Roos, Google Politics & Elections Team

Who and what were State of the Union viewers searching for?

2012-01-25T13:30:00.000-08:00

Last night, President Obama delivered his annual State of the Union address in front of Congress. In approximately an hour and a half, the President touched on numerous issues, both domestic and foreign; this is also true for Indiana Governor Mitch Daniels, who delivered the Republican response to the State of the Union.

With such a buffet of issues and people name-checked during Obama’s speech, Google Politics & Elections took a look at what search terms experienced substantial increases during the event.

In the first graphic, we focused on issue-specific words, finding Iraq to have the sharpest spike in interest during the speech:

In the second graphic, we narrowed the field to the names of individuals that increased in nationwide searches. Arizona Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, who announced recently she would step down from her seat to focus on her recovery, trended only slightly behind Gov. Daniels.

Posted by: Samantha Smith, Google Politics & Elections Team

Your Interview with President Obama

2012-01-23T07:44:00.000-08:00

(Cross-posted from the Official YouTube Blog)

If you could hang out with President Obama, what would you ask him? Would your question be about jobs or unemployment? The threat of nuclear weapons? Immigration reform? Whatever your question is, submit it on YouTube for the opportunity to ask the President directly in a special interview over a Google+ Hangout from the White House.

On Monday, January 30, a few days after delivering his State of the Union address to the nation, President Obama will answer a selection of top-voted questions you’ve submitted in a live-streamed interview. Starting today through January 28, you can visit the White House YouTube channel to submit your video and text questions and vote on your favorites. Your YouTube questions will drive the interview, and several participants with top-voted questions will be selected to join the President in the Google+ Hangout to take part in the conversation live.

So take out your camera, check your hair and go to youtube.com/whitehouse to submit your question now. Need ideas? Visit youtube.com/whitehouse on Tuesday night to watch the President’s State of the Union address live. The address will be followed by the Republican response on Speaker Boehner’s YouTube channel.

Video questions are preferred (though we also accept text) and should be about 20 seconds long. In the video description, be sure to tell us a little bit about yourself, like where you’re from.

Your Interview with President Obama will be streamed live at 5:30 p.m. ET on January 30 on youtube.com/whitehouse. You have until midnight ET on January 28 to submit your question and make your voice heard on the issues that matter to you.

Posted by: Ramya Raghavan, YouTube News and Politics Manager, recently watched, “How to Buy a Car, Using Game Theory”

How did the GOP debates impact South Carolina Google searches?

2012-01-21T14:38:00.000-08:00

Much has been written about Newt Gingrich’s surge over the last week, including a Google Politics & Elections post showing a nearly 700% jump in South Carolina searches for the former Speaker.

In the graphic below, we tracked South Carolina searches for the four remaining candidates over that time period. As you can see, though Gingrich experienced the largest search surge, Santorum also saw a sharp uptick and even surpassed Ron Paul to take second place today. This is especially relevant given that exit polls indicate half of all South Carolina voters “made up their minds in the last few days.”

Posted by: Samantha Smith, Google Politics & Elections Team

What South Carolinians want to know about Romney and Gingrich

2012-01-21T07:41:00.000-08:00

Because negative stories about a political candidate are often just as newsworthy as positive ones, it’s often helpful to go beyond mere search volume when analyzing which candidate-related issues have gained traction.

Yesterday, we published a graphic showing a 698% surge in South Carolina search traffic for Newt Gingrich since Monday. For the graphics below, Google Politics & Elections analyzed which search queries South Carolinians typed most often into Google in relation to Gingrich and Mitt Romney.

As you can see, at least three of the top four searches associated with Gingrich have to do with the candidate’s current and former wives, which may be the result of a Nightline interview given to Gingrich’s ex-wife Marianne on Thursday. The fourth most-searched query, [newt scandal], may be a direct result of this interview as well.

The top four queries associated with Romney were much less issue-specific. They instead focus on more general biographic details and his campaigning in South Carolina:

Posted by: Eric Hysen, Google Politics & Elections Team

New Google-POS Poll: How the Internet is Changing Republican Voter Behavior in South Carolina

2012-01-20T13:41:00.000-08:00

The Internet has fundamentally transformed how voters receive information, and in this year’s Republican primary Google has helped change the way voters follow elections. From partnering with the Republican Party of Iowa to show real-time caucus results to using our Insights for Search tool to see how searches for candidates in key states track with news events, Google’s Politics & Elections team has helped connect voters to relevant information. To complement our online efforts, Google recently hired leading polling firm Public Opinion Strategies to go "offline" to find out how likely Republican primary voters in South Carolina are receiving information by conducting a telephone poll of 500 likely voters on January 17 and January 18.

The results show that even in South Carolina, which according to the U.S. Department of Commerce is sixth-to-last in the nation in overall use of the Internet, a surprisingly high number of likely Republican primary voters have gone online to follow the election.

Our findings in South Carolina reaffirm that campaigns which do not fully embrace the Internet as a means to engage voters -- for fundraising, persuasion, and turnout -- do so at their own peril.

Even in a state where a significant overall percentage of residents are not online, a substantial majority of likely voters in Saturday’s Republican primary have gone online to get their news about the election -- and have also used search engines to check the information they receiving. The habits of Republican voters in South Carolina show the incredible opportunity the Internet provides political campaigns to effectively reach targeted voters at the most important moment -- when those voters are actively seeking information about the campaign.

The findings include:

70% of likely Republican voters in South Carolina, about the same percentage of the population that has Internet access, have gone online to gather information about Saturday's election. This means that most Republicans who enter voting booths tomorrow will do so with an opinion that has been shaped by what they saw online.

62% of likely Republican voters in South Carolina who have searched online have used a search engine to check information they saw elsewhere, a number that holds up among supporters of all the candidates (and, surprisingly, even 43% of voters 65+ had used a search engine to check information they had learned about a candidate).

Just as consumers use the Internet to conduct research before purchasing a product, they’re researching information about candidates before casting their ballots. And it is clear that the political advertising landscape is adapting along with these shifts in voter behavior, as the poll indicates that nearly half of Republican primary voters recall seeing an ad for one of the presidential candidates while online. Voters' video consumption is also changing, with one-third of likely Republican primary voters (again, in the sixth-least wired state in the nation) watching candidate commercials or videos online. Other than television news or newspaper websites, where do they consume the video? Thirteen percent said the YouTube website, ahead of both candidate websites and social networking websites.

Interestingly, the most “tuned-in” primary voters, like those who watched all of Monday’s debate, say that they are more likely to have checked information using an online search. Of those likely to vote, more than 60% watched all or some of the debate on Monday -- and of them, more than 60% have checked information using an online search.

While the outcome in tomorrow’s election is uncertain, Google and Public Opinion Strategies’ findings, coupled with the trends we’re seeing across the political landscape, quantify just how fundamentally the Internet is impacting American politics.

Posted by: Rob Saliterman, Google Politics & Elections Team and Robert Blizzard, Vice President, Public Opinion Strategies

Gingrich gains momentum in South Carolina searches

2012-01-19T15:29:00.000-08:00

The Palmetto State primary is just two days away, and we’ve been watching South Carolina search traffic this week for the GOP candidates. We discovered Newt Gingrich moved from a solid fourth place on Monday to first place in South Carolina search volume today. The latest South Carolina polls show Gingrich catching up with Mitt Romney. In a few cases, Newt actually leads Romney.

Gingrich has seen a 690% increase in search traffic since Gingrich’s last debate performance on Monday. That exceeds the search growth of any other candidate campaigning in South Carolina.

Posted by: Samantha Smith, Google Politics & Elections Team

The Colbert Bump

2012-01-15T08:58:00.000-08:00

The “Colbert Bump,” as described by one wiki, is the “curious phenomenon whereby anyone who appears on The Colbert Report gets a huge boost in popularity.” We at Google Politics & Elections wondered if this rule applies even to Stephen Colbert, who announced Thursday night he would set up a presidential exploratory committee after a recent poll found him leading GOP candidate Jon Huntsman in South Carolina.

To test this, we looked at South Carolina Google search data to see if Colbert experienced any noticeable spike in searches for his name. The results were dramatic: Since Thursday, Colbert saw a 189% jump in searches in the state, while Paul, Santorum, Romney, and Gingrich all saw declines during the same period.

In total searches, Colbert trailed all four of these candidates on Thursday, but as of Friday, he was outperforming everyone but Paul and Romney in South Carolina.

Will this Colbert Bump be sustained? We’ll check in early next week to see how Colbert is performing against his real GOP counterparts.

Posted by: Samantha Smith, Google Politics & Elections Team

Candidate searches in South Carolina

2012-01-12T11:44:00.000-08:00

With South Carolina's January 21st primary less than 10 days away, all eyes are on the Palmetto state. Rick Santorum saw a rise in search interest after his near-tie in Iowa, but has his position changed after Mitt Romney's win in New Hampshire?

After pulling the latest search data, it appears traffic is tightening across candidates. After Iowa [santorum] had a small surge above all other major GOP candidates. However, the searches are now starting to close up and the ever-Internet-popular Ron Paul now maintains a narrow lead over [santorum] and [romney] in South Carolina searches. The trends also indicate a slight rise in search for [gingrich] in the state.

We will be keeping a close watch over these search trends as candidates continue to crisscross South Carolina, participate in debates, and increase advertising throughout the state. Check back for updated trends as we get closer to primary day in South Carolina.

Posted by: Samantha Smith, Google Politics & Elections Team

Huntsman receives post-debate bump in searches

2012-01-09T13:44:00.000-08:00

The remaining GOP presidential candidates participated in two debates over the weekend looking for a last-minute bump in the polls before the New Hampshire primary tomorrow. But how much did they really affect voters in New Hampshire and their awareness of the candidates?

The Google Politics & Elections team looked at Google’s internal search trends for New Hampshire to rank the candidates based on two metrics.

In the first, we compared search traffic for each of the candidates on Saturday to searches for their names on Monday during the same time period. Though there are fewer searches on weekends, we found a wide variation in the degree of search volume for each candidate. As you can see in the first graph below, Jon Huntsman saw the sharpest increase in search traffic at 50%. He was followed by Newt Gingrich (+21%), Mitt Romney (+18%), and Ron Paul (+8%). Rick Santorum was the only candidate who actually saw a decrease in search traffic (-35%).

In the second graphic, we ranked the candidates by search volume today in New Hampshire. You’ll notice that the rankings are very similar to the rankings for many of the polls conducted in the state.

Posted by: Samantha Smith, Google Politics & Elections Team

Using Google search trends to look ahead at New Hampshire

2012-01-06T13:01:00.000-08:00

In the wake of the closest Iowa caucuses in history, the race for the GOP presidential nomination turns to New Hampshire, which hosts this cycle’s first primary next Tuesday. How will the Iowa results will affect New Hampshire, if at all? To find out, we used Google’s Insights for Search to compare search queries for the top-polling candidates in New Hampshire. Ron Paul is atop the field and rising. Despite unparalleled search performance, Paul remains a distant second in the latest polls of likely voters in New Hampshire’s primary.

Though he only won the Iowa Caucuses by eight votes, Mitt Romney’s lead in New Hampshire polls looms large over the rest of the field. In Google searches by New Hampshirites, however, Romney is well behind Ron Paul, who also led searches in Iowa. Romney is also on the verge of being overtaken by Jon Huntsman in New Hampshire’s searches. Huntsman is third in searches and in some recent polls there.

Despite essentially tying Romney in Iowa, Rick Santorum still trails the pack in polls for New Hampshire (a state that contrasts sharply with Iowa’s religiosity.) But Santorum has seen a considerable spike in search traffic there, as well as in South Carolina, where the next primary takes place on Friday, January 20. And so far for this week, searches for Santorum are on par with the other frontrunners.

Posted by: Samantha Smith, Google Politics & Elections Team

Politics & Elections Blog

Hanging out with the candidates

How much do rising gas prices affect Google search interest?

The Search for President: Iowa to Alabama

Who's leading Google searches in Alabama and Mississippi?

What do Google search trends tell us about Super Tuesday?

Super Tuesday: Who’s ahead and what’s at stake?

Mapping the March to Tampa

The most-searched candidates in Super Tuesday states

Santorum surging in AZ, MI, and national Google searches

Top search trends from last night's GOP presidential debate

Measuring the race for First Lady with Google searches

Visualizing Santorum’s surge in Colorado, Minnesota, and Missouri

Top related searches for Romney and Gingrich in Florida

Who and what were Floridians searching for during last night's debate?

In Raleigh, the Mayor-Elect Turned to the Web for the Win

Who and what were State of the Union viewers searching for?

Your Interview with President Obama

How did the GOP debates impact South Carolina Google searches?

What South Carolinians want to know about Romney and Gingrich

New Google-POS Poll: How the Internet is Changing Republican Voter Behavior in South Carolina

Gingrich gains momentum in South Carolina searches

The Colbert Bump

Candidate searches in South Carolina

Huntsman receives post-debate bump in searches

Using Google search trends to look ahead at New Hampshire