Subscribe to RSSIf Clicks Were Votes, the New Hampshire Primary Winners Are"¦ (or as goes the swines, so go the moose)
Sitting at home over the holidays, working a bit, and watching television, I was inundated with New Hampshire presidential candidate ads. Already? With the Iowa Caucus on January 3rd and New Hampshire 5 days later on the 8th, my immediate question was, "What does our panel data say about these two events and what predictions can I make?"
I looked at 5 consecutive days of consumer internet behavior, immediately prior to the Iowa caucus, to analyze user visits to the presidential candidate sites. As expected, nationwide, Iowa users were the most politically active, with one out of five Iowans actively looking at campaign websites followed by 6.5% of people from all of New Hampshire.
Based on the traffic that each candidate site received, Compete definitely had the inside scoop on user clicks, and would have accurately predicted the results in Iowa. The percentage of visits across the sites for all candidate sites show:
As New Hampshire prepares to go to the polls tomorrow, the results of the Iowa Caucus appear to have had a direct impact on New Hampshire users’ interest in the candidates’ websites. This interest could be curiosity or it could be an indicator of tides turning, as shown in the chart below. Data was aggregated at 3 different period intervals for the last 10 days.
If we base votes on site visits alone, then we predict Obama and McCain as the New Hampshire primary winners.
And one more fun fact, early indicators show Obama winning the Michigan primary on January 15th for the Democrats, and Huckabee and Paul too close to call for the Republicans. But then again, the tide can turn, as shown above.
