Facebook and Google probably have the biggest, most interesting data sets on human behavior and connection. Both companies have a jaw-dropping amount of data on what people search for, who is connected to whom, and more. So we decided to use some of that data to understand what’s going on in politics.
Specifically, Google pulled some data for THE WEEKLY STANDARD and let us analyze it. Google has a treasure trove of data that I’m hoping to return to in the future, but this time we focused on the basics in Senate races: Which candidates are getting more search traffic, and which issues are associated with which candidates.
Basic Data: Who’s Getting More Google Searches?
We’ll start with the simple stuff. Google looked at the two major party candidates in each battleground Senate race, calculated the search interest for each candidate within their state and then figured out whose name was getting searched more. This number is expressed as a percentage, so Rick Scott’s 57 percent means that he got 57 percent of the searches for his name and Nelson’s.
That data, alongside RCP poll averages and SwingSeat’s forecasted win probabilities as of Monday (more on SwingSeat here) is in the table:
In most of these races, the candidate who is in the lead according to my forecast is also getting the most Google traffic. Joe Manchin, Jon Tester, Krysten Sinema, Joe Donnelly, Ted Cruz, and Claire McCaskill are all both leading their opponents in search interest and my model’s projections.
And there are other interesting patterns. Ted Cruz and Beto O’Rourke are getting pretty similar amounts of search interest – which is an interesting contrast to national media coverage, which has seemed to focus more on O’Rourke. In North Dakota, Heidi Heitkamp is getting a lot more search interest but trails in the polls and in our forecast. And in Nevada, Republican Sen. Dean Heller is leading in search interest even though he’s slightly behind in the polls and in the forecast.
I’m new to Google data, so I don’t know exactly what high search interest means for a candidate’s chances at winning an election. But, interestingly, there seems to be some relationship between search data and polling in key states. And, maybe more importantly, Google data gives us interesting insights in which issues are at the front of the public’s mind.
Which Issues Matter Most?
Google also gave us some more specialized, granular data. We provided them with a list of issues (e.g. jobs, immigration, abortion, etc.) and they paired those issues with the candidate names to see what issues are most associated with each candidate. In case that’s confusing, here’s an example: The data say that Texans searched searched more for Ted Cruz plus words related to immigration than they did for Cruz plus words related to education.
According to this data, some issues are basically universal. People in key battleground frequently search a candidate’s name along with words related to health care, immigration, and taxes regardless of whether they’re in a red state represented by a Democrat, a border state with an open contest, a swing state or somewhere else.
But there are some interesting patterns with other issues. Floridians and North Dakotans seemed interested in candidate positions on Medicare, but the issue didn’t come up as much in candidate-related searches in other states. (In the case of Florida, at least, it makes sense given the high number of retirees living in the state.) In Texas, people searched more for O’Rourke and gun control than they did for most other issues (the same was true of Jon Tester in Montana). And abortion seemed to generally come up more in red states than in other states. Abortion was a top search topic for Heidi Heitkamp, but it wasn’t in the top five most searched issues for either candidate in Arizona, Nevada, or Florida.
And it’s also worth looking at the patterns that weren’t there. In most states, trade wasn’t very highly searched. Searches around Kavanaugh also didn’t show up much, but that’s likely because the searches cover roughly the last month, and the Kavanaugh story didn’t really gain steam until the end of the month. But, despite this handicap, the Kavanaugh issue was notably associated with searches for Heidi Heitkamp, Joe Manchin, and Joe Donnelly. That suggests that voters in red states are paying attention to what their senator is doing and thinking on the nomination.
