Using Google to predict who will become president

So I'm not promising this will be a 100% viable method, but it is definitely an interesting possibility that I will keep a close eye on over the next few months.

I've never tried this before a year or so ago as the service just wasn't available. I was looking around at Google Trends thinking of how it could be used and I came to the thought of possibly using it to predict who may win the presidency. Based off of the majority of my keyword input, the results currently point to a high probability of Obama becoming president, as he has a higher public interest. Please look at the charts, links, etc and decide for yourself.


Here we have a "vote for ******" keyword chart. This keyword chart represents the search volume for the terms "vote for obama" and the terms "vote for mccain"

"Vote for Obama" is represented by the blue line
"Vote for McCain is represented by the red
Full statistics: Google Trends: vote for obama, vote for mccain










Here we have a keyword chart that represents the search volume for the search terms: "obama" and "mccain"

"Obama" is represented by the blue line
"McCain" is represented by the red line
Full statistics: Google Trends: obama, mccain








Now to throw a loose bolt into the gear box, I have added clinton to the mix. The number are fairly consistent rankings of public interest in each candidate, and as you can tell even with the huge popularity of the Clinton name, it is still at the bottom of the ranks. This is obviously due to the lack of campaigning, and it is shown by the search volume increases going up for McCain and Obama, but continuing to drop for Clinton.

"Obama" is represented by the blue line
"McCain" is represented by the red line
"Clinton" is represented by the orange line.
Full statistics: Google Trends: obama, mccain, clinton



Now like I said, I don't consider this to be 100% accurate, or even come close. Large groups of people may have interest in a specific for a variety of reasons other than considering voting for them. I am curious what all of you think?

BTW, these graphs will always be live updates, so I didn't post who it says is better, or worse (Aside from Clinton, she has 0% chance of becoming president)...

It has purty charts, so I like it. But I suspect the Halloween mask sales breakdown will prove to be just as accurate.

Next couple months?? Shoot...Next couple weeks is the election....17 days to be exact

Boneman said:

Next couple months?? Shoot...Next couple weeks is the election....17 days to be exact

Click to expand...

yes but these charts will continue to change throughout that period.

these are the same charts that had RP clearly winning for the repukes a few months back.....
Thoe, if I was a betting man, I'd bet the marxist winning easy.
...can't wait.

I really can't wait to see... As of today, based on my theory Obama will win... who knows what the outcome could be though... Google searches might account for a lot of the votes, or none at all.

The main problem with this sort of prediction is that there is a huge age gap between McCain and Obama supporters. Younger voters predominantly vote for Obama. And of course, younger voters are also most likely to be using the Internet.

Of course, you said yourself there are problems with this method.

I don't understand why you think there might be any correspondence between the number of people searching google using the keyword "vote for obama" and the actual number of people who vote for Obama.

If you want an accurate prediction, I think you'll find that opinion polls are much more accurate.

A couple of interesting sites that I've been following are

Electoral-vote.com: President, Senate, House Updated Daily and
FiveThirtyEight.com: Electoral Projections Done Right

They both break down opinion polls state by state and then accumulate the number of electoral college votes for each candidate. Both sites are predicting an overwhelming victory for Obama as well as increased majorities for the Democrats in both the house and the senate.

Obama 349 McCain 171 Ties 18

I never said it would be accurate, I just think it would be interesting to see the results you get from Google Trends when it comes to the various search terms people enter regarding their campaigns.

Just saying from beginning to end, all of the search criteria that builds up may matter. Of course prediction systems can never be considered 100% accurate because of the variables that are up against them.