Google Elections

Google Elections tries to prove that the number of hits on Google doesn't mean that much by using the results of Google searches as an indication for the next presidential elections. According to Google, it will be a close race with the republicans winning.

The program compares the number of hits for the search string 'democrats' + statename with 'republican' + statename and normalizes it for partyname + 'united states'. The trend seems to be correct, but there are a number of anomalities, with the democrats winning Texas (probably due to the walk out of the Texas democrats to avoid redistricting).

The results:
Republicans 290
AL(51.8%), AK(51.0%), CA(50.6%), CO(53.3%), DC(50.5%), DE(51.4%), GA(51.0%), HI(52.6%), ID(53.9%), IL(53.7%), IN(56.4%), KS(53.4%), KY(54.5%), LA(51.9%), ME(52.0%), MD(53.2%), MN(53.2%), MS(52.7%), MT(54.5%), NE(58.2%), NV(54.0%), NJ(52.0%), ND(50.6%), OR(52.7%), PA(55.2%), RI(55.6%), TN(50.7%), UT(52.3%), VA(51.1%), WV(53.5%), WY(56.0%)

Democrats 24
AZ(53.9%), AR(50.2%), CT(52.5%), FL(52.7%), IA(62.6%), MA(57.0%), MI(50.8%), MO(54.5%), NH(65.2%), NM(52.7%), NY(54.0%), NC(56.6%), OH(51.8%), OK(53.6%), SC(56.8%), SD(52.1%), TX(54.4%), VT(61.4%), WA(56.2%), WI(50.4%)

It could be interesting to see whether the results get more realistic, once the election day approaches and writing on the web becomes more and more concentrated on the race.

You can download the source code for this project and rerun using Google without API, with API or Altavista. The results between the three are quite different, which alone should say something.