Democratic Candidates for President

As I mentioned in my last blog post, the traction that candidates get online, don't always follow when it comes to make a choice at the ballot box. But, in the case of the Democrats, there is a clear alignment. The 3 leading candidates all have ranks well within the Alexa Top 100,000 sites, while the rest, all fall well outside that mark.

Candidate - Alexa Traffic Rank
1) Barack Obama - 22,238
2) Hillary Clinton - 23,621
3) John Edwards - 70,410
4) Mike Gravel - 164,042
5) Dennis Kucinich - 207,544
6) Bill Richardson - 210,239
7) Joe Biden - 216,111
8) Christopher Dodd - 249,972

The only real surprise here is that Richardson, Biden and Dodd, have zero traction online. Gravel and Kucinich, who are often ignored by the media, actually get more online users.

I just heard that Fred Thompson threw his hat into the ring. His site is supposed to launch some time next week. It will be interesting to see if he garners any online support. Stay tuned.

Republican Candidates for President

Howard Dean's presidential campaign of 2004 seemed to prove that popularity on the Internet doesn't translate into votes in the primaries. Dean, by far the most popular candidate on the net, simply couldn't get the votes. Why the discrepancy?

Is the Internet a skewed demographic that doesn't represent the voting public at large? Do people play it safe when they get to the ballot box? Or do other forces such as the media or the political parties exert more influence when it comes time to vote?

It looks like we are going to get a chance to examine this question all over again. In both the republican and democratic parties we have "leading candidates" that are getting their butts kicked all over the "Interwebs" by "second tier" candidates.

I'll get to the Democrats in a later post. For now I'd like to start with the Republicans. Here they all are (or at least the ones that have participated in the televised debates), sorted from most traffic online to least:

Ron Paul Rank 20,473
Mitt Romney Rank 71,431
Rudy Giuliani Rank 122,838
John McCain Rank 141,317
Mike Huckabee Rank 297,126
Sam Brownback Rank 338,164
Tom Tancredo Rank 344,354
Duncan Hunter Rank 422,788

Are you surprised to see Ron Paul top the list? He is heads and shoulders above the rest. Romney, Giuliani and McCain don't even come close to touching Paul's online numbers. To get a better visual idea of the disparity, take a look at the Reach graph for them:

That blue line... that's Ron Paul. Those other lines way below, those are the "leading" candidates.

The question still stands... why is it that the candidate that gets the most traction with online users isn't the leading candidate? Is the Web simply irrelevant? I think it is time we took a deeper look at this question.