Could Google be this election’s true crystal ball?
There are a ton of polls out there trying to predict what’s going to happen on November 6th. But do those polls really say that much about the average voter and the issues that are most on their minds?
Seth Stephens-Davidowitz is a Ph.D student in economics at Harvard. He’s tracking what voters are searching for in Google to find out how they’ll vote in November. Stephens-Davidowitz says his method is more accurate than polls that simply ask voters to respond to questions.
“People tend to be a lot more honest with a search engine…as opposed to polls,” says Stephens-Davidowitz.
One surprising finding? There are more search engine queries for “Paul Ryan Shirtless” than “Paul Ryan Budget.” Stephens-Davidowitz says is an indicator of a key problem with polls. Voters may say they want elections to focus more on policy but in truth, they may be more interested in other details.
Stephens-Davidowitz wrote a more complete analysis of his findings for the New York Times.
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