Politics and Elections Blog
Trends, tools and news from the Google Politics & Elections team
On Politics: Google Consumer Surveys Measure Up
Friday, November 16, 2012
As analysts continue sifting through the winners and losers of the 2012 campaign, one thing has become clear: online market research and polling has well and truly entered the mainstream.
When we launched
Google Consumer Surveys
back in April,
we pledged
to bring a fast, accurate, and affordable way to conduct market research. Over the course of the presidential race, we
looked at
voter preferences on issues, conventions, candidates, and even the outcomes of debates. Our service is powered by the voices of web users, like you, who answer anonymous polling questions.
So how’d you all do in your first election with us? Pretty spectacularly.
Nate Silver, of NYT’s FiveThiryEight blog - who many consider to be the ‘high priest’ of statistical polling data -
concluded
that Google Consumer Surveys was the #1 most accurate poll online and the #2 most accurate poll overall, surpassing many well-established and recognized traditional polls. Further,
the Pew Research Center
evaluated the tool in great detail said it will likely be an important addition to the research tool kit available to pollsters.
At the same time, your answers help support high quality websites that earn money from showing micro-surveys on their sites. Google Consumer Surveys run on top sites across the web. (For more on how the nuts and bolts of these surveys work
check out this video
). By answering questions, you’re helping to fund premium content - your favorite columnist, reporter, photographer, magazine or opinion-maker. These surveys support publishers such as Texas Tribune, Boone Newspapers, Digital First Media (Denver Post and other regional papers) and help to keep content online free.
But, political campaigns and publishers aren’t the only folks who are benefiting from Google Consumer Surveys. Academics, start-ups, non-profits and major consumer marketers are using the tool to improve their products, better understand their customers, and conduct detailed
research
.
With the holiday shopping season upon us, like a lot of you, we’ll be shifting some of our focus to helping understand consumer preferences around holiday gift buying. Taking what we learned from politics, we’ll work with marketers and partners to share trends and insights, and help our partners connect with their current and future customers.
If you can’t wait for our shopping-season results, why don’t you
go ahead and run a survey of your own
!
Posted by: Brett Slatkin on behalf of the Google Consumer Surveys Team
Google by the Numbers: The 2012 US Election
Thursday, November 15, 2012
Last week, more than 120 million Americans went to the polls to cast their vote for president, Congress, and hundreds of statewide and local races. Since we launched our
Google Politics & Elections program
in January at the Iowa Caucuses, we've seen unprecedented digital engagement in this election on Google and across the web. We wanted to share some stats about how our products, including our
Voter Information Tool
and the
Civic Information API
, were used to find voter information like polling places, sample ballots, early voting sites, and voter ID requirements:
In the two weeks leading up to the election, we served over 23 Million voter information queries across our sites and third-party apps.
Over 100 developers built apps using the Civic Information API, including the League of Women Voters, Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights, and AT&T.
More than 600 sites embedded our Voter Information Tool, including CNN, the Huffington Post, and both the Democratic and Republican Congressional Campaign Committees.
We're thrilled to have been able to help millions of Americans find the information they needed to vote, both on Google and across the web. Now we're off to do the same in other countries like
Ghana's elections
next month and the Czech Republic, Italy, and Kenya next year.
Posted by Eric Hysen, Google Politics & Elections Team
2012 was the breakthrough year for digital persuasion across 4 screens
Monday, November 12, 2012
The 2012 campaign will be remembered as the first four screen election.
The Internet has fundamentally transformed how voters receive information on candidates and issues. Access to political information no longer comes from one place, or one screen. That means that campaigns that adapted to this new reality - and adopted a four-screen strategy to persuade and connect with voters - more often than not won. The trend is clear: those who invest in online win. In fact, 9 of the top 11 US Senate races who spent more online with Google won on Tuesday.
Let’s look at how the four screens worked together in the closing days of the race.
Of the four screens, mobile’s role in political campaigning grew the most from 2008. Voters use their devices to stay up to date about key issues, look up quick answers, or find last-minute information like where to vote. Candidates who recognized these behaviors and developed mobile strategies to reach people on their smartphones were able to drive voter interaction. Specifically, we found that as election day neared, voters turned to their mobile devices for election-related information.
Total US Mobile searches related to finding a voting location
increased by 164% from Monday to Tuesday
. This trend was even more pronounced in battleground states.
Quite a few voters leave their homes on Election Day and are
still undecided
.
On the day of the election, throughout the US, the majority of Obama-related searches occurred on mobile devices as millions of Americans stood in line and travelled to their polling places.
Search, especially on larger screens like laptops, is an essential voter tool for fact-checking and education. It is also a critical campaign tool for for rapid-response and persuasion. We saw campaigns and issue advocacy groups use search to respond, educate or even ‘bracket’ events in real-time. There was a real shift toward voters using (and trusting) the Web as a fact-checker, especially around offline events like debates. 64% of voters use the Internet to verify or “fact check” a claim made by a candidate or issue group and it is clear that it is key to formulating voting decisions.
In Maryland
, where same sex marriage legislation was passed,
total searches for gay marriage increased by 482% from the same period last year
.
Since April 2011, when Romney officially entered the race, over 700,000 videos mentioning Obama or Romney have been uploaded to YouTube, and these videos account for
2.8 billion views
.
Television - especially around live campaign events like debates - is a powerful catalyst to drive action on digital devices. Savvy campaigns built presences across all screens to stay connected with voters that are driven online by TV to fact-check or research.
77% of TV viewers use another device at the same time in a typical day. (
Google Multi-Screen Research)
And, finally, while tablets are still a relatively new device, they distinguished themselves as an important tool this election. The most notable role that tablets played was as a couch companion, helping voters find more information and react to the things they saw on TV. While this TV + Tablet multi-screening was the most mainstream behavior we are also seeing a growing number of people who are turning to tablets first to consume news and find information.
During the second Presidential Debate,
energy-policy related searches on tablets spiked by 359%
immediately after the question about gas prices. This shows how people reach for their tablets in response to things on TV.
Campaigns who don’t come to grips with these changing voter behaviors will have a harder time giving that victory speech on Election Night. Campaigns who go online and develop a multi-screen approach to persuading and connecting with voters will win. It has never been more clear that the road to victory requires a
four screen strategy
.
Posted by: Jennifer Gross on behalf of the Politics & Elections Team
Making it easier to find polling places after Superstorm Sandy
Monday, November 5, 2012
Cross-posted from the
Official Google.org blog
While Americans prepare to go to the polls on Tuesday, election officials are completing last-minute moves of dozens of polling places in areas affected by Superstorm Sandy.
Google is making this updated polling place information available through our own tools, such as the
Voting Information Tool
and
search onebox
, and also making it available to other developers and technology partners through the
Google Civic Information API
.
One of our API users, Mobile Commons, built a custom instance of an SMS-based polling place locator
to allow voters to send a text for the latest information. New Jersey voters can text "WHERE" to 877-877, while New York voters can text "NYCVOTES” to 877-877 for updated locations. New Jersey Governor Chris Christie and New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg have referenced the tool at recent
news conferences
.
The
League of Women Voters
, the
Lawyers Committee on Civil Rights
,
AT&T
, and
Foursquare
are working quickly to help affected voters find their polling place. Whether you’re in New York City or Cedar Rapids, Iowa, we’re all doing our best to ensure you can access the information you need to vote.
Posted by Eric Hysen,
Google Politics & Elections Team
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