Which States are most Tuned-in to Next Year’s Election?
Written by Matt Pace (contact - e-mail) -- November 6th, 2007 | Recommend ThisWith roughly 60 days until the first votes are cast in the 2008 presidential election, the remaining Democratic and GOP candidates are crisscrossing the country in search of support, while concentrating their organizational and financial resources on a handful of early contest states.
The map and table below compare interest in the election across the lower 48 states (sorry Hawaii and Alaska) as gauged by the percentage of people in each state who visited either a candidate’s website or a top political blog during the month.
Observations:
- The early contest states of New Hampshire and Iowa stand out for being the most politically engaged at this stage in the election. This comes as no surprise given the historical significance of these states in determining winners, not to mention the millions being spent by the candidates in New Hampshire and Iowa to curry favor with voters. Nevada, South Carolina and Michigan, also holding their primaries in January, are also among the most politically active states.
- The home states of several leading candidates also show above average political engagement. Note, for example, Arizona (McCain), Illinois (Obama), Michigan (Romney) and Tennessee (Thompson).
- Although Hollywood, Silicon Valley and Wall Street are popular destinations for candidates seeking to fill their campaign war chests, California and New York residents, in general, have yet tune in to this election. Once campaign funds start flowing back into these states in the form of advertising during the general election, this will surely change.
- Idaho’s ranking appears to have been influenced by the scandal involving U.S. Senator Larry Craig, who represents the state, as residents turned to the political blogs for information and discussion on the subject. Political interest in Idaho doubled between July and September.
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Get the 
November 6th, 2007 at 1:21 pm
It make be more relevant if you re-analyze your numbers and take the following into account:
1. The percentage of people in the state with Internet Access
2. Percentage of population over 18
3. Your (Compete’s) estimated analysis sample in a state (e.g. In North Dakota, you may not be sampling the same pct as you do in other parts of the country)
I would be interested in the result
November 6th, 2007 at 5:17 pm
That is true. Internet access would mean a lot when comparing the data.
November 6th, 2007 at 5:53 pm
Eric and Steve-
I appreciate the feedback. On the point of internet access. It might not have been clear, but for this analysis the basis of comparison was indeed the ONLINE populations of each state. The actual percentage of households online in each state, in the case, while interesting, does not affect the results as the math was simply, for example:
The number of people ONLINE in Nevada visiting a political site divided by the total number of people ONLINE in Nevada.
For more information on our data normalization methodology, read here:
http://blog.compete.com/where-do-these-numbers-come-from/
Matt
November 9th, 2007 at 1:27 pm
Rationally, the #1 observation should be that, at least at this point, only a tiny minority of people online (which is a subset of the people in general) bother to check out even the top political blogs and campaign websites.
Those of us committed to reinvigorating grassroots participation in the political process using online tools and technologies should start with being honest with ourselves and not get caught up in our own hype.
December 28th, 2007 at 4:57 pm
Be it politics or fantasy football, it seems that Wyoming always comes last? Do people there use the internet? Do large corporations based on the East and West coast bother building broadband infrastructure there? Is there anything that people from Wyoming do on the internet more than other people?
February 1st, 2008 at 6:43 pm
Fascinating. Thanks for posting this kind of information. I’ve linked to it from two different places.
March 3rd, 2008 at 12:46 am
This is really interesting data. I’ve got to say, I find the extraordinarily low amount of political awareness in this country extremely disturbing. 3.6% should be embarrassing, not the prize-winner.