An ABC News/ Washington Post “general-election trial heat” poll released on Tuesday, June 7th indicated that President Obama and former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney are currently neck and neck among respondents. If the contest for the White House between these two men alone, currently 47% of those polled would vote for Mr. Romney and 47% would vote for Mr. Obama. Romney was the top performing candidate against Obama among Jon Huntsman, Newt Gingrich, Tim Pawlenty, Michelle Bachmann and Sarah Palin.
Despite this performance, the variations of searches that included ‘sarah palin’ in the query was 6x the volume of ‘mitt romney and 2x the volume of ‘barack obama’. The search term variations for ‘sarah palin’ increased 170% for the week ending June 4, 2011 as compared to two weeks ago (week ending May 21, 2011) after the start of her bus tour and recent gaffe regarding the history of Paul Revere. Although the share of variations is lower, there was an increase of 56% in variations for ‘mitt romney’ last week after Mr. Romney officially announced his campaign on June 2, 2011 as compared to the previous week.

In comparing total visits across potential presidential candidates, Obama’s website, Organizing for America received the highest volume of visits, more than double that of 2nd ranked SarahPAC.com and 3x of MicheleBachmann.com. While smaller, the total visits for MittRomney.com increased 345% for the week ending June 4, 2011 as compared to the previous week, the highest gain among the 6 websites. Visits to the website for Sarah Palin also increased 165% during the same time frame.

Thanks to Margot Bonner, Analyst on the Custom Data & Insights team for helping with today’s analysis