Google’s Top 2015 Trending Search Terms For The 2016 Elections Are…

Why would anyone care what the trending search terms were on Google for 2015? What do search terms and trends have to do with the 2016 election cycle? Everything, that’s what. This year’s “Year in Search” falls in a presidential election cycle, which usually means the best of 2015 search trends are even weirder and wonkier than any other year.

Search trends follow candidates on both sides, and their respective races to the primaries on the way to the White House. Each candidate leaves an interesting trail of trending search terms that are hard to miss in the wake of Republican and Democratic debates, speeches, and campaign rallies.

Presidential Candidate Trending Search Terms

Two people dominated the trending search terms – and have all year. One name dominated every state except one, and the other took second place in all states. They are:

  1. Donald Trump (R)
  2. Senator Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.)

Trump dominates with “highest trending search term” status the entire year nationwide – with the sole exception of Vermont. That’s probably because Vermont is the home state of Sen. Sanders, who took second place behind Trump in 2015.

Most Searched Candidate 2015 Donald Trump Bernie Sanders
Most Searched Candidate 2015 via Google Trends

 

Running the presidential candidates’ names as trending search terms side by side, Google showed more of what you might expect. In the order of their searches, the two candidates in second place are Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton (D-N.Y.) and Ben Carson (R).

These four have pretty much dominated all of the election-related trending search terms for the entire year, although Carson is slowing down and dropping in the polls lately.

Most Searched Presidential Candidate In 2015 By Party

Breaking down the trending search terms for presidential candidate by party brings some changes, but not many.

Looking at just the Democratic Party candidates as trending search terms, some might be surprised to see that:

  1. Sen. Sanders takes 50 percent
  2. Sec. Clinton takes just 47 percent
  3. Governor Martin O’Malley (D-Md.) earns 3 percent
Most Searched Democrat In US - Bernie Sanders Hillary Clinton
Most Searched Democrat In U.S. – via Google Trends

Sen. Sanders dominates again, but Sec. Clinton is close behind. Gov. O’Malley might not be getting too much credit, but he’s clearly faring better than former Rhode Island Governor Lincoln Chafee, or Virginia Senator Jim Webb did – neither of whom made a blip in search.

Breaking down the Republican Party’s presidential candidates as trending search terms, some might be surprised to see these five in this exact order:

  • Donald Trump
  • Senator Ted Cruz (R-Texas)
  • Ben Carson
  • Senator Marco Rubio (R-Fla.)
  • Former Florida Governor Jeb Bush (R-Fla.)
Top Five Most Searched Republican Candidate Donald Trump Ted Cruz
Top Five Most Searched Republican Candidate via Google Trends

Trump dominates as usual, but the order of the other four is interesting, though not entirely unexpected. Except for Gov. Bush, maybe, who averages 4.6 percent, with 3 percent in the latest Fox poll, according to Real Clear Politics.

Debate Interest In 2015 – By Party

One really interesting tidbit regarding search terms and the elections is how the “Democratic debate” and the “Republican debate” terms differed. According to the Google Trend data, Americans are much more interested in the GOP debates, as evidenced by those big green spikes.

Most Searched Democratic or Republican Debate
Most Searched Democratic or Republican Debate via Google Trends

Why such a difference between the two party’s debate search interest? First of all, the GOP has practically turned the 2016 election cycle into a circus. Everyone – including people from every political party, and even non-voters – are tuning in to watch the show.

On the Democratic side, the October 13 brought decent interest, but December 19’s debate brought almost no search interest at all. Do you see that tiny little blue uptick that comes all the way on the right?

Yup, that was the Saturday night’s Democratic debate.

Maybe the next presidential election cycle’s will bring Democrats better luck with the debate search interest – or maybe the Democratic National Committee needs a new chair and a better debate schedule. Either way, it’s clear from Google’s Year in Search that Americans are enamored with the race to the elections in 2016.

Maybe Trump’s run has value after all.

 

Featured Image by DonkeyHotey and Patrick Barry via Flickr/CC by SA-2.0