Google Trends, Part 1: Beware those underestimating Democratic primary campaigns by Stacey Abrams, Beto O’Rourke and Bernie SandersAndrew Eldredge-MartinBlockedUnblockFollowFollowingFeb 16A Google Trends analysis of five big names considering runs for the Democratic nomination suggests that Stacey Abrams, Beto O’Rourke and Bernie Sanders have been able to distinguish themselves vs.
other major unannounced candidates.
Google Trends, 12/15/18 to 2/16/19Google Trends indexes search interest on a relative scale from 1 to 100, comparing the interest between the terms or topics in a given analysis.
Former Georgia state legislature minority leader and gubernatorial nominee Abrams was the clear leader in this group hitting 100 on this index when she gave the official Democratic State of the Union response.
Former Texas U.
S.
Representative and senatorial nominee O’Rourke was in second place in this time period with a score of 47 when he counter-programmed President Trump in El Paso, Texas.
Current U.
S.
Senator Sanders twice broke out with scores of 43 during news around his likely presidential bid in late January and 30 for his alternate State of the Union response.
Also, looked at in aggregate, Sanders had the most overall search interest over the whole time period — just a little lower at peak times than O’Rourke and Abrams.
Former Vice-President Joe Biden, who leads in many public opinion polls nationally and in early states, has not broken through in the same way during this period.
His highest index was 10 out of 100 during this period.
Former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg faced similar hurdles, topping out at 4 out of 100.
There are too many great Democrats considering the 2020 presidential campaign to include everyone in a single analysis — and of course this is only looking at search traffic and is a single snapshot in time.
Update: Read Part 2 on geography here!.. More details