With the Iowa caucuses out of the way, America turns its eyes towards New Hampshire for the first real primary of the 2012 election season. While many predict a comfortable Romney victory in his home region of New England, a close Iowa caucus and surging challengers like Rick Santorum and Ron Paul make this race interesting regardless.
Continuing on a series of reports looking at web popularity among GOP candidates, Chitika Insights took a look at the search traffic within the United States over the weekend, to see which candidate is sparking the most search interest on the web leading up to tomorrow’s primary.
Expectedly, Mitt Romney generates a lot of interest among the casual political pundit; however, he is trumped by Ron Paul by an over 3 to 2 margin:
Also of note is that Ron Paul maintains a statistically significant gap between himself and Mitt Romney in New Hampshire alone.
What does it mean?
Ron Paul polls well with many different demographics nationwide; among all Republicans, he is by far the most popular among young voters. Given the younger population is far more pre-disposed to using the internet as a source for news gathering and political conversations, it would make sense that Ron Paul performs very well in terms of online interest. Romney also shows considerable strength, as does Santorum, indicative that the Iowa result was not a fluke. Gingrich’s star is fading fast, while Perry’s star seems to be a black hole now. While Huntsman should see a large boost in his New England profile thanks to his Boston Globe endorsement, it is still a large uphill climb for him to obtain the Republican nomination.
Check back with Chitika Insights for more information on the online happenings of the GOP Primaries, as well as other web based analytical studies.
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