• by Wendy Davis  @wendyndavis, October 31, 2004

A greater proportion of visitors to Senator John Kerry's Web site, JohnKerry.com, than that of President George W. Bush, Georgewbush.com, had household incomes at the extremes--both $150,000 and over, and less than $30,000--in the four weeks ending Oct. 23, according to a Hitwise survey of 2.5 million Internet users. Bush's site had a greater proportion of visitors from households with incomes between $30,000 and $149,000.

About 9 percent of visitors to JohnKerry.com had household incomes of at least $150,000, while only 6.8 percent of visitors to Georgewbush.com had such incomes. At the same time, more than 20 percent of visitors to JohnKerry.com had incomes of $30,000 or less, while around 17 percent of visitors to Georgewbush.com fell into that category.

Hitwise also found that a greater proportion of Kerry visitors were at least 55 years of age, or between 18 and 34 years of age. Bush had more visitors in the 35-to-54 age range. Women also made up a larger percentage of Kerry visitors (56.4 percent) than Bush visitors (51.9 percent).

But, cautioned Bill Tancer, Hitwise's vice president of research, such demographic information is of limited predictive value. Clickstream data showed that many visitors clicked on one candidate's Web site immediately after visiting the other's, said Tancer, showing that they might simply have been seeking information. "It could be somebody who's undecided, it could be somebody who wants to check out the opposition," he said.