Subscribe to RSSCandidates' fundraising numbers not all in, can site traffic show the leaders?
Candidates in the 2008 presidential race have until April 15 2007 to file their first quarter campaign finance reports with the Federal Election Commission. All but one of the six major players has announced their funding totals as of April 2, and the results have opened some eyes:
Hillary Clinton’s $26 million 3-month total (plus $10 million from her Senate campaign fund) represents a formidable obstacle for any Democratic competitor. And Mitt Romney’s $23 million puts him well ahead of his fellow Republicans.
But while money rules campaigns at this stage of the game, elections are ultimately decided by people. What sort of interest is out there among the populous for each of the candidates? One way to measure that is to look at the number of visitors to each candidate’s primary web site.
If web traffic is any indication, public interest currently lies with the Democrats. Clinton and Obama are averaging over 70,000 unique people visits each week. Other than Rudy Giuliani’s sudden burst in the last week of March, the number of people visiting the sites for the top Republican candidates doesn’t even come close to that.
It’s obviously far too early to tell what this translates to in terms of the election. But it is certainly anecdotal evidence that Democrats have the early edge in energizing their base.
