The American public’s increasing interest in the presidential election helped the candidates increase their online FaceTime with voters by an average of 25% in December.

Ron Paul continued to lead all candidates while Mike Huckabee’s surge continued thanks, in part, to publicity surrounding his controversial Christmas message. Mitt Romney’s speech on his faith helped the former Massachusetts Governor double his FaceTime from November, the largest percentage gain for any candidate. Among Democrats there was evidence of an Oprah Winfrey-aided pre-Iowa surge for Barack Obama, whose FaceTime increased 79%, while rivals Hillary Clinton and John Edwards lagged.

The table below shows each candidate’s FaceTime in December, their share of their party’s FaceTime, and the percentage of all hours spent with a candidate that occurred on his or her official website; the latter being a bellwether of grass-roots support. Following the table are charts comparing monthly FaceTime share by candidate during the past year.

December Highlights:

• Obama’s success in rallying grassroots supporters started paying handsome dividends in December as he grabbed nearly half of his party’s FaceTime. What’s more, 40% of Obama’s FaceTime occurred on sites other than his official website. In fact, the amount of FaceTime Obama earned offsite rivaled Clinton’s total FaceTime which was up only 4% last month. Since announcing her candidacy last January, Clinton has failed to captivate supporters as evidenced by her inability to significantly grow her web presence. Her site traffic has trended at levels reached a year ago in contrast to rivals from both parties who over the past year have increasingly expanded their online footprints.




• Religion had a noticeable impact on the GOP side of the election in December. Mitt Romney’s long anticipated speech on “Faith in America,” in which he defended his Mormon faith, helped him attract 120% more visitors to his website and double his FaceTime. Rival Mike Huckabee set off a conspiracy firestorm that generated more free publicity for his cash-strapped campaign with his “What Really Matters” (a.k.a. floating cross) video. Thanks in part to the video, Huckabee grabbed 31% of all GOP FaceTime last month.




• Rudy Giuliani’s risky decision to skip the early contest states and wait until Super Duper Tuesday on February 5th to make his move, contributed to the former New York mayor ranking at the bottom of all of the top tier candidates in terms of FaceTime in December, down 19% from November. If Giuliani can’t muscle GOP FaceTime away from rivals in January, he could be severely handicapped by the time next month’s 24 state battle royale arrives.

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.

In an amazingly short period of time Mike Huckabee has vaulted into contention for Iowa’s GOP delegates and with them a springboard into the follow-on contests in other states. After Fred Thompson failed this past fall to capitalize on the one-time excitement among conservatives for his would-be campaign, Huckabee’s populist message, evangelical appeal, and glowing early press coverage catapulted him to the ranks of the top tier candidates. Of course, with the increased attention has come significantly more media and rival (read: Mitt Romney) scrutiny of his past statements and record as Governor of Arkansas.

From an online perspective at a national level, interest in Mike Huckabee, as judged by Compete’s Attention metric (time spent on his campaign website as a share of all time spent online in the U.S.) reached its zenith on December 3rd, exactly one month ahead of tomorrow’s Iowa caucuses. Since then, online attention in the former Baptist minister has dropped significantly, reaching its lowest point in December on Christmas Day (of all days). While Huckabee has rebounded somewhat over the past week and continues to gain more attention than his GOP rivals (with the exception of Ron Paul), it’s worth asking what might have been.

Had the Huckaboom peaked closer to today, Huckabee might have come out of practically nowhere to stun Romney in Iowa. Now after leading Iowa polls for nearly a month, Huckabee is expected to win, and with relatively little organization outside of the Hawkeye State, anything other than victory in Iowa could mortally wound his candidacy. In this historic race for the White House, as in life, timing certainly is everything.

Last month Compete unveiled a new way of tracking the effectiveness of the presidential candidates’ online efforts. Dubbed Candidate FaceTime^TM, the metric offers a web wide means of measuring how well the candidates are using the leading social networks and video sharing sites to get their message out to voters. FaceTime quantifies the total amount of time voters spend online with candidates across their official website as well as their related sites on places such as MySpace, Facebook, YouTube, and Meetup.com. The amount of time candidates earn with voters thus becomes a reflection of the depth and breadth of their online support.

As we approach the primaries, voters in general are paying attention in ever increasing numbers to the race and accordingly almost all of the candidates increased in their total FaceTime in November. Mike Huckabee and John Edwards in particular saw surges in FaceTime during the month of 194% and 181% respectively, while Ron Paul continues to outdistance all candidates.

The table below shows each candidate’s November FaceTime and associated change from October as well as the candidate’s share of their party’s FaceTime. Included this month is detail on Meetup.com, specifically the candidate’s share of time spent by voters across any candidate affiliated Meetup.com group. It’s here that Paul’s online advantage is clearly evident, as his affiliated groups accounted for 9 out of 10 minutes spent with any candidate on Meetup.com. Below the table are trended charts comparing each candidate’s share of monthly FaceTime through November.

November Highlights:

• Ron Paul’s fanatical grassroots campaigning and record fundraising last weekend is proof that online support can indeed make a difference in the election. The challenge for all of the candidates is how to leverage their online support. Paul and his zealous online supporters offer a case study on how, by leveraging Meetup.com, online activism can be harnessed into offline action. At last count Paul had over 82,000 supporters on Meetup.com who collectively have planned or held nearly 21,000 offline events to rally support (and raise money) for their candidate. 11% of Paul’s total FaceTime in November occurred on Meetup.com. Win or lose the GOP nomination, Paul’s groundbreaking use of Meetup.com is likely to be studied and emulated by campaigns in future elections.




• While it’s unclear whether celebrity endorsements really help candidates, if done right, a creative (and would-be viral) video featuring that celebrity can go miles in helping a candidate get their message out to voters. Case in point: Mike Huckabee. The onetime third-tier candidate has catapulted himself into contention for the GOP nomination on the back of a populist message that is arguably long on humor and rhetoric and short on policy specifics. Huckabee’s FaceTime grew 191% in November, the most of any candidate, and ranked second only to Paul in total time with voters. Huckabee’s endorsement by Chuck Norris (a.k.a. Walker Texas Ranger) was significant in helping him gain the attention of voters last month. Their humorous video “HuckChuckFacts”, which began airing last month, has now been viewed over 1.2 million times. Huckabee is the only candidate, other than Paul, whose supporters are making heavy use of Meetup.com to rally support.




• John Edwards saw nearly a tripling of his FaceTime in November thanks to the popularity of his “The Politics of Parsing” video in which he draws attention to Hillary Clinton’s perceived inability to take a firm stand on issues. To date, that video has been viewed nearly 350,000 times.

As the states prepare to begin awarding their delegates next month, analyzing the size, geographic and demographic makeup of each candidate’s online following (in this case visitors to the candidates’ websites) offers insight, beyond the never ending stream of opinion polls, as to who is likely to win these primaries and caucuses and secure their party’s nomination.

Yesterday we looked at state of the Democratic race, and today we turn our attention to the wide open GOP contest, where six of the eight candidates are considered frontrunners.

The table below compares the site traffic to each candidate’s website in November, as well as the demographic composition of visitors over the past three months. Traffic across the entire Republican field rose by an average of 34% in November, versus 11% among the Democratic candidate sites, a signal that Republicans are finally starting to pay attention to the race.

Attracting nearly half a million visitors to his website in November, Ron Paul continues to distance himself from the GOP pack and is benefiting from his supporters’ effective online activism and use of social networks. Six in ten visitors to RonPaul2008.com are male, the most of any candidate, and 39% of his visitors have household incomes greater than $100K, which is sure to catch the envious eye of rivals and helps explain his recent recording setting fundraising efforts.

Fred Thompson may be the experienced actor, but Mike Huckabee’s recent “Huck-a-boom” in support is evidence that he’s filling in quite nicely for Thompson in the role of the “Great Conservative Hope.” Huckabee’s site traffic rose 89% in November largely at Thompson’s expense. Among the top-tier candidates, Mitt Romney attracts the largest percentage of female visitors.

Now we’ll compare where the leading Republican candidates are drawing their online support. The following maps show where visitors to each candidate’s website reside in the U.S. Each dot represents 25 visitors (the dots themselves are randomly plotted within each state.) The last map is shaded based on the candidate who attracted the most visitors from each state in November.

Observations:

• Paul attracts the largest online following not only is his home state of Texas, but he also outdraws all of his rivals in their home states as well (Giuliani—New York; Huckabee—Arkansas; McCain—Arizona; Romney—Michigan and Massachusetts; and Thompson—Tennessee). This certainly runs counter to the notion that Paul’s support is localized to a few pockets (read: basements) around the country.
• One area of the country where Paul doesn’t dominate is in the Deep South where Huckabee’s Evangelical appeal appears to be resonating with much of the GOP base.
• Giuliani and McCain’s decision to concede Iowa and focus instead on New Hampshire is evident on the maps. All of the candidates, with the exception of Fred Thompson, are attracting considerable attention among New Hampshirites. As several of the candidates’ (Romney and McCain in particular) fortunes are likely to rise or fall in the Granite State, the January 8th primary could be a bloodbath.

Nearly a year into the 2008 presidential election cycle, the races are at long last getting interesting and judging from the recent rise in site traffic to the candidates’ websites, the U.S. electorate is paying attention to the races in ever increasing numbers.

As the states prepare to award their delegates, looking across the country to see where the leading candidates are drawing their online supporters offers insight, beyond the never ending stream of opinion polls, as to who is likely to win upcoming primaries and caucuses and secure their party’s nomination.

Today we will focus on the Democratic race, and tomorrow we’ll assess the wide-open GOP contest. To begin, the table below compares the site traffic to each of the candidate’s websites in November, as well as the demographic composition of visitors over the past three months. For comparison, traffic across all of the Democratic candidate websites rose by an average of 11% in November. In terms of demographics, 26% of visitors to Barack Obama’s website are under the age of 25%, a testament to his efforts to position himself as a change agent in Washington and attract the youth vote. Hillary Clinton, not surprisingly, attracts a disproportionate percentage (56%) of female visitors to her site.

Now we’ll compare where the leading Democrats, namely Clinton, Obama, and former Senator John Edwards, are drawing their online support. The following maps show where visitors to each candidate’s website reside in the U.S. with each dot representing 25 visitors (the dots themselves are randomly plotted within each state.) The last map is shaded based on the candidate who attracted the most visitors from each state in November.

Observations:

• On a national level, the Democratic contest is now effectively a two horse race between Clinton and Obama. Clinton shows strength along most of the Eastern seaboard and Mountain states; while Obama is leading on the West Coast, Mid-West and much of the South.
• Edwards is failing to attract much online interest in his campaign in either his home state of North Carolina or in the crucial early contest state of South Carolina. However, Edwards’ focus on Iowa, where polling shows him very competitive, is evident as he appears to be drawing a considerable following in Iowa to rival Obama and Clinton.
• The Democratic Party’s decision to strip renegade Florida of is delegates as punishment for the early scheduling of their primary could end up hurting Clinton the most. In November she attracted the largest following among Floridians and a victory there could have helped her stunt rival momentum if she loses early votes in Iowa, Nevada and South Carolina (all of these states favored Obama in November based on site traffic).