Yesterday, Rick Santorum swept all three primary and caucus states in his ongoing battle for the GOP presidential nomination. As the Washington Post noted, Santorum campaigned only minimally in Florida and Nevada, instead placing much of his efforts in Colorado, Minnesota, and Missouri, and the effort seems to have paid off.

In Google search trends for all three states, Santorum experienced a drastic surge in searches within the last 24 hours in each state. In fact, in two of the three states, Colorado and Minnesota, search trends mirrored the first and second place finishers. In the last week, Santorum searches have increased by 262% in Colorado, 515% in Minnesota, and 386% in Missouri. No other candidate achieved even half this percentage increase.



Posted by Samantha Smith, Google Politics & Elections Team