What Does Search Activity Say About The Election?

With less than a week to go until U.S. voters choose a new president, Yahoo is sharing what it knows about White House-related search activity. Here are some highlights from Yahoo’s blog post today, which taps into data from Yahoo Buzz:

• During the past week, Barack Obama has been the subject of more than twice as many queries as John McCain.
• A week ago, there were six times as many searches about Cindy McCain compared to Michelle Obama.
• Geographically, on a queries per capita basis, John McCain is getting most of his search interest from Washington, DC, New Jersey, North Carolina, Ohio, and others. Barack Obama, on the other hand, is a hot search topic in Washington, DC, Georgia, Florida, Virginia, and others.

Yahoo also compared the search volume of the two presidential candidates head-to-head in five key states:

Perhaps best of all, Yahoo says it’s seeing a “surge in look-ups for information pertaining to voter registration.”