The Democratic Race: What a Difference a Day Makes

in Uncategorized by Matt Pace — February 4, 2008 at 3:00 pm | 0 comments

The race among Democrats to choose their favorite presidential candidate is still wide open as we head towards Super-Duper Tuesday next week. With the extremely compressed primary calendar the race seemingly changes overnight as the final candidates jockey to capture the spotlight and sustain momentum earned by early state wins.

The charts below compare daily traffic to the leading candidates’ websites from late December until January 9th, spanning the run up to both the Iowa Caucus and the New Hampshire primary. The first looks at nationwide interest in the candidates, whereas the latter charts focus on the candidates’ share of traffic among Iowa and New Hampshire residents.

Highlights

• As previously noted, Barack Obama‘s base-building efforts have helped him outdraw rivals online for the better part of the past year. The data above suggests the Iowa caucus was truly neck and neck leading up to the vote. Note that on January 1st, Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton and John Edwards attracted nearly identical shares of Iowans to their websites. The following day; however, voters seemed to break in mass for Obama. His stunning early defeat of the Clinton machine propelled Obama to national attention and helped him attract 180,000 visitors to BarackObama.com the next day.
• Obama’s post-Iowa surge also caught the attention of voters in the Granite State. After attracting an average daily share of just 24% of New Hampshire visitors pre-Iowa, Obama’s share jumped to 37% on January 4th before peaking at 54% on January 5th. The days between Iowa and New Hampshire were filled with doom and gloom for Clinton’s campaign with most pundits and polls predicting a land-slide defeat, and potentially the end of the line for her candidacy. From the data above, however, it is clear that Clinton’s all-or-nothing efforts in New Hampshire in the final days before the primary, as well as a well-timed bit of emotion, helped turn the tide in her favor. Obama maintained his lead over Clinton until just one day before the vote. Had Obama been able to hold on, the outcome and significance of Super-Duper Tuesday might have been very different.

About Matt Pace: As Managing Director of Retail and Consumer Products at Compete, Matt Pace is responsible for leading a team of client services professionals who deliver digital intelligence and insights to clients in the retail and consumer packaged good industries. Before Matt joined the Compete Team he was a CPA and senior auditor with Deloitte & Touche. Follow Matt on Twitter @mattpace.