More midterm election search trends as the results come in

News from Google

As Election Day went on, people continued to come to Google for information and, importantly, updates on results. Starting around 8pm PT yesterday, Nov 2, and continuing throughout the night and into the morning, more than half the terms in Hot Trends were related to the election. People searched for [live election coverage] as well as news sites like [fox news] and [drudge report]. Most of the popular searches, however, were for certain races and candidates, starting mostly with races in the Eastern time zone and gradually moving west as polls closed across the country.
The hot terms included Senators-elect [marco rubio] of Florida, [dan coats] of Indiana and [rand paul] of Kentucky, three Republicans who won yesterday, as well as incumbent Democrats Sen. [blanche lincoln] of Arkansas and [russ feingold] of Wisconsin, who lost, and Democrat Joe Manchin of West Virginia, who won the special Senate election to take Robert Byrd’s former Senate seat. [joe sestak], Pennsylvania’s Democrat candidate for Senate, was also popular online, as well as [joe toomey], who defeated him. People also looked for information on the [delaware senate race] which had gained national attention largely due to Republican candidate Christine O’Donnell (she lost).


Beginning around 9pm PT, we saw interest rising in the [nevada senate race], the outcome of which would determine whether Majority Leader Harry Reid would stay in office. Searches for [harry reid polls] and [nevada election results] continued to be popular even after it was announced that he had won. California’s incumbent Democrat Sen. [barbara boxer], who also won her reelection bid, was also popular search. And the still-undecided Alaska Senate race continues to drive searches, especially for the write-in candidate there, [lisa murkowski].

In the House of Representatives, we’ve seen searches spike for Rep. [nancy pelosi], who won her California district last night but lost her position as Speaker of the House when the Republicans gained the majority in the house. Her successor as Speaker, [john boehner], was also popular. And there was interest in reelected candidates from both sides of the aisle, from Democrat [barney frank] of Massachusetts to Republican [michele bachmann] of Minnesota.

Popular Governors’ races include Ohio, Florida (people are also looking for info about its winner as of this morning, [rick scott]), Texas, Illinois, Connecticut, South Carolina (which elected its first female governor last night, [nikki haley]) and Minnesota, where the winner has yet to be decided as of this moment. [emmer], the Republican candidate there, is in the top 20 list on Hot Trends as of 8am PT this morning.

California’s prop 19, which lost by an estimated 10 percentage points, continued to be popular online, as people checked for [prop 19 results] [prop 19 status] and [prop 19 poll numbers], asking [did prop 19 pass in california].

Some East Coast residents seem to have gone to bed before the results came out last night, and are catching up on the news this morning. Searches for New England newspapers [portland press herald], [hartford courant], [burlington free press] and [bangor daily news] took up a fifth of the Hot Trends list at 8am PT today, along with searches for [tallahassee democrat] and [columbus dispatch].

Finally, it wasn’t just current candidates who made news last night. Former vice presidential candidate [geraldine ferraro] was popular online; Ferraro appeared on TV last night with her fellow VP candidate Sarah Palin, and the former made some comments about female candidates for president in 2012 that had some people raising eyebrows. People were also interested in [obama trip to india], the President’s trip planned for this weekend.

That’s it for now, but we’ll keep an eye on the search trends—and on the news—and see if we have any more interesting tidbits to share.

Emily Wood, Google Blog Editor

googleblog.blogspot.com

published @ November 3, 2010