NPR: Online Trends vs. Offline Polls

Online Trends vs. Offline Polls

Joshua Levy, Associate Editor, techPresident.com
Everybody's talking about polls. This week new polls are putting Barack Obama up to ten points ahead of Hillary Clinton among Democrats. But online search trends show a different picture.

Just this week, polls from Rasmussen, Gallup, the Associated Press, and others put Barack Obama up to ten points ahead of Hillary Clinton among Democrats. In Pennsylvania, the site of the next Battle for the Nomination, Clinton has been consistently ahead of Obama, though the margin, around 7%, is much closer now than it was a few weeks ago.

But these stats often feel disconnected from the way many of us actually interact with politics on a daily basis, often on the web.That's one reason why I've been watching how companies like Compete, Hitwise, and Yahoo have been tracking online voter interest.

Compete, a data marketing company, pulls together data that shows how much "FaceTime" each candidates have with voters -- it shows how much time voters spend with the candidates' profiles on sites like Facebook, YouTube, Wikipedia, and the candidates' own sites. According to that metric, online voters are visiting Barack Obama online four times as much as they're visiting Hillary.

Hitwise, another data company, shows that up to 53% of online voters are going to Barack Obama's site. 30% go to Hillary's, and a whoppingly low 9% are visiting McCain.
My favorite traffic-tracking site is probably Yahoo's Political Dashboard. Using some sort of black magic, it displays nationwide search trends for the candidates, creating what they call "Yahoo Buzz."

But it also hones in on search trends in single states. Despite Clinton's slight lead in the polls in Pennsylvania, Obama's Yahoo Buzz score there is 78% to Hillary's 19%. This means that among online voters searching for a Democratic candidate, folks are looking for Obama by a measure of roughly 4 to 1 -- about the same as Compete's FaceTime findings.

What does it all mean? These online trends are limited in that they only show the enthusiasm of online voters; many voters still don't Google "Barack Obama," much less seek out his Facebook profile or YouTube channel. But these numbers give us a snapshot of how excited voters are getting about their candidates. And they show a fairly clear picture: while Hillary is still ahead in PA, Obama has the momentum.

--Joshua Levy, Associate Editor, techPresident.com

12:02 PM ET | 04-18-2008 | permalink

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I'll likely vote for Obama but I could also vote for McCain. However, I'd never vote for Clinton!

Sent by Bob | 9:50 AM ET | 04-20-2008

It seems to me a major shift in the responding web-posters/voters has occurred. Not long ago, most posters on the web were dominated by conservative males - hardly of a liberal bent. Now the above cited polls seem to show a far more progressive trend - possibly as a result of far more women participating in web response than a few years ago.

Sent by Lou | 10:47 AM ET | 04-20-2008

Online stats are going to be skewed toward younger voters, and Obama is definitely doing better with that demographic. The big question is, will young voters actually vote?

Sent by John T. | 11:30 AM ET | 04-20-2008

Young people haven't just been more active and vocal in this campaign, they've voted in the primaries in unprecedented numbers. If that level of participation is any indication -- most people don't really get involved until November -- I think we'll see record-breaking numbers of young voters this fall.

Sent by Josh Levy | 3:10 PM ET | 04-20-2008

it could also simply reflect that mr. obama is less of a known quantity than the other two. with the tradmedia coverage offering only "fawning" coverage (jan to 4 march) or "silly season" coverage (thereafter) perhaps potential voters who care enough to invest the time are simply trying to do their own research -- it ain't easy getting anything about the candidates' major issues stances from the tradmedia day-to-day coverage.

Sent by tim in exile | 7:11 AM ET | 04-21-2008

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