Republican presidential hopeful Donald Trump is the candidate Iowans — and the rest of the nation — have “Googled” the most over the past seven months, according to search results released Monday by a digital marketing firm.
According to iQuanti, from June through December 2015, Iowans searched for Trump on Google an average of 32,172 times a month. In December, Iowans searched for Trump 40,500 times. The second and third most Googled GOP candidates over the seven month average were Ben Carson (9,843) and Carly Fiorina (6,472). However, both Carson and Fiorina saw their searches drop in December to 6,600 for Carson and 3,600 for Fiorina.
While Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) and Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) were not Googled as often over a seven-month average, by December they were well ahead of Carson and Fiorina, with Iowans searching for Cruz 14,800 times and Rubio 12,100 times.
The remainder of the Republican field saw less movement. Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) was searched 4,958 times over the seven month average and 5,400 times in December. Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush’s seven month average was 4,758, and in December he was searched 5,400 times. Former Florida Gov. Chris Christie, Ohio Gov. John Kasich, former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, former Sen. Rick Santorum, and former Virginia Gov. Jim Gilmore received less than 2,000 searches over the seven month average. Of the sub-2,000 group, only Christie received more than 2,000 (2,400 searches) in December.
On the Democratic side, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) has been dwarfing former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. Over the seven month average, Iowa voters searched for Sanders 24,800 times and 27,100 times in December. Iowans searched for Clinton less than half as many times — 10,429 on average over the seven months and 12,100 in December.
Nationally Trump and Sanders also dominate their respective fields in the search data realm. From June through December Trump averaged more than 5 million searches a month and over 6.1 million in December alone. Sanders was the second most searched candidate with nearly 3 million searches on average a month over the seven months monitored, and more 2.7 million in December.
Hillary Clinton was the third most Googled primary candidate on average over those seven months with nearly 1.3 million searches and 1.2 million searches in December.
While Carson and Fiorina were the fourth (1.2 million searches) and fifth (727,715 searches) most googled primary candidates on average over the seven month stretch, in the month of December their searches were overtaken by Cruz (1.5 million searches in December) and Marco Rubio (823,000). In December Carson was searched 823,000 times and Fiorina 368,000 times.
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