GOP candidates enjoy the surge

Here are some screenshots from Google Trends showing the volume of internet users who are searching for information about the leading GOP candidates. The first shows the trends across all of 2007 for candidates Ron Paul, Fred Thompson, Mike Huckabee, Mitt Romney and Rudy Giuliani. (These images were captured Sept. 10, and it takes Google several days to feed new data into the system so these graphs are a few days behind the actual trends).

The upper graph shows the density of searches for each candidate, while the lower graph in the above image shows the density of news coverage corresponding to each candidate. Huckabee and Paul are the least discussed candidates in news coverage, but Paul enjoys fairly high levels of search interest across the internet. Notice that pre-ordained frontrunners Romney and Giuliani have the most news coverage, while their search trends float along the bottom of the charts. It begs the question: If Paul's campaign were covered more frequently in the media, would people be searching for more information about him? This graph clearly shows the level of demand he inspires on the internet.

This graphic below shows the search trends for just September alone. Two significant events occurred simultaneously resulting in the surge you see reflected on this graph: the FoxNews debate and Fred Thompson's candidacy announcement on Leno.

The drop-off you see for both Paul and Thompson can largely be attributed to lower internet traffic that's typical on weekends. It will be interesting to see how their demand levels off as we go into this next week. Stay tuned for that.
UPDATE: Here is the screenshot for both candidates a week later - notice how the earlier peak rapidly settles out for both:



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