E-Stumping Kicks Into High Gear, Traffic Spikes To Democratic Candidate Sites
- by Ross Fadner , December 18, 2003
Al Gore's much anticipated endorsement of Democratic front-runner Howard Dean this week increased traffic to Dean's site by 263 percent, according to estimates from Hitwise. The study further notes that Al Gore's public endorsement probably raised awareness to other democratic hopefuls as well, although it was Reverend Al Sharpton's appearance as host on "Saturday Night Live" that garnered one of the biggest spikes. For the period of Dec. 1 to Dec. 9, traffic to Sharpton's site jumped 637 percent over the preceding period.
Meanwhile, Gore's 2000 running mate Joseph Lieberman experienced a surprising 373 percent increase in traffic to his site - ostensibly because of his 2000 ties to Gore. Also, John Kerry's site surged 144 percent, Dick Gephardt's 108 percent, Carol Moseley 143 percent, Dennis Kucinich 120 percent, and John Edwards a paltry 16 percent increase - all for the first week of December.
The Hitwise data also found traffic to Democratic hopeful sites by Internet users for Iowa, with the Iowa Caucus only five weeks away.
A geographic analysis of the data, meanwhile, shows that Congressman Dick Gephardt has front-running Web traffic emanating from Iowa, the state that will host the first nominating caucus in only five weeks. Gephardt's site received 30 percent more visits from users in Iowa than any other state. That was nearly ten times greater than the next leading candidate in the upcoming Iowa caucus, John Edwards.
Joe Lieberman and General Wesley Clark, noting that the caucus is little more than a primary dress rehearsal, pulled their campaigns out of Iowa to focus on primaries in other states, a move the report deems "the right strategic decision" based on the data. As a result, both candidates received the least amount of increased traffic from Internet users in the state of Iowa compared to other leading candidates.
