AP Partners with Twitter and Google on Election Tracking Tool

New Election Buzz tracking tool powered by Twitter and Google keeps you in the loop

By Saqib Shah March 2, 2016

sxsl to performers announced white house washington dc — Image used with permission by copyright holder

As the campaign trail tirelessly marches on, it can often be a slog to keep up with all the news in the run-up to the 2016 presidential election. Now more than ever, social media and search engines also hold a treasure trove of valuable information in regards to the political climate.

If you don’t happen to be an online-savvy social media enthusiast, however, the likes of Twitter and Google Trends can prove difficult to get to grips with. Luckily, the Associated Press (which has been closely monitoring the primaries on its website) has created a tool that seemingly solves all your election tracking issues.

AP Election Buzz uses the power of the aforementioned digital resources to bring you easy-to-digest visualizations based on online activity regarding current events, primary candidates, and even policy issues.

In terms of interaction, you can split the data by time (stats from the past 24 hours, past week, past month, or even since August 1, 2015, are available) to see how each major caucus, debate, or endorsement has impacted public interest online, reports Wired.

AP’s Election Buzz, powered by @GoogleTrends & @Twitter, shows what's hot in #Election2016: https://t.co/7vwJe1yHwq pic.twitter.com/ut88IaD2zC

— AP Interactive (@AP_Interactive) March 1, 2016

For example, Donald Trump is the most mentioned candidate on Twitter in the past 24 hours, and also leads in terms of search interest on Google. You can filter Trump out by simply looking at the Democratic nominees, where Bernie Sanders is currently beating Hilary Clinton with a 53.6 percent share of conversation on Twitter and 56.9 percent of search interest on Google. In regards to policy issues, “national security” is driving the conversation on Twitter, whereas the “National Rifle Association” is the leading search term on Google.

The Google data comes courtesy of the company’s political index, which measures 2016 election search interests on a minute-by-minute basis and is updated every hour. The Twitter conversation is measured by analyzing tweets containing candidate names, campaign hashtags, and other terms related to the election. Again, the list of measured issues is regularly updated to reflect election cycle trends.

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