New Report Indicates Voters Most Interested in Barack Obama’s Position on Abortion
RSS Newsfeed 
Email article
Printer friendly
by Steven Ertelt
LifeNews.com Editor
July 3, 2008
Washington, DC (LifeNews.com) — A new report shows voters are interested in the position Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama takes on abortion. The Internet traffic monitoring firm HitWise indicates abortion is now the number one political issue voters are looking for when they conduct a search on Obama’s campaign web site.
Hitwise analyzed the top 200 U.S. search terms that sent visits to the presidential candidates’ websites for the first half of 2008, revealing the types of content searched for the most among Internet users.
Issues like education, the environment, health care and immigration are important to visitors on Obama’s web site, but HitWise says abortion tops them all.
In the first quarter of 2008, abortion came in as the number two most important issue on the minds of voters looking to Obama’s web site to learn more about him. As news of Obama’s pro-abortion position has filtered throughout the nation, the abortion search term moved up to the top spot over the last three months.
McCain’s pro-life position on abortion must be more clear to voters as abortion came in as the third most important issue in searches on his web site in the first quarter but slipped out of the top five in the second quarter.
Heather Dougherty, research director for HitWise, says the topics that voters put in searches on the candidate web sites, give an indication of what political issues are most prominent on their minds.
“This has implications for what content should be featured on the candidates’ websites, and broadly across all communications with voters,” she said.
With Obama as a newer candidate with a surge in interest and popularity, his campaign web site receives 79.25 percent of online visits when compared with the traffic of the McCain site. But Hitwise shows McCain’s web site is increasing in traffic as he moved from 14.62 percent in May.
This represents a seven percent increase compared to May 2008 and a five percent increase over April 2008 traffic McCain’s web site received.
McCain’s web site is also receiving more traffic from new visitors than Obama’s. In June 2008, Barack Obama’s website received 55 percent of its visits from returning visitors and 45 percent from new visitors. McCain’s website received 21 percent of its visits from returning visits and 79 percent from new visitors.
Among all U.S. websites, both candidates saw increases in visits as Obama’s website increased 1,367 percent and McCain’s website increased 2200 percent compared to June 2007.
Sign Up for Free Pro-Life News From LifeNews.com
Daily Pro-Life News Report Twice-Weekly Pro-Life
News Report Receive a free daily email report from LifeNews.com with the latest pro-life news stories on abortion, euthanasia and stem cell research. Sign up here. Receive a free twice-weekly email report with the latest pro-life news headlines on abortion, euthanasia and stem cell research. Sign up here.
