A Look Back: Election Week 2012

As one of the most hotly contested elections in history came to its dramatic conclusion this week, we wanted to share some interesting stats that show just how engaged voters were with some of the online tools available to keep them in the know this election. ComScore revealed that almost 32 million people visited Bing and MSN to say informed on Election Day, with over 308 million pages viewed.*

Here’s a snapshot of some other interesting things we measured internally:

While TV has long been the dominant medium for election coverage, our data also revealed that a significant audience was also looking for a second screen experience on election night.  In fact, almost 8 million people visited Bing and MSN during the primetime broadcast hours of 8-11 PM ET on election night, which matched CBS and beat Fox (4.9 million) and MSNBC (4.7 million)**.

People visiting Bing peaked at 11 PM ET on Election Day followed by the second most visited time period of 12 PM ET the following day.

Election related searches on Bing increased 300% on Election Day.

Below are the top elections-related searched conducted on Bing on Election Day:

Top Overall Election Searches:

1. Election results

2. Barack Obama

3. Mitt Romney

4. Electoral votes

5. Obama vs. Romney

6. Exit poll

7. Election coverage

8. Early voting results

9. Electoral college

10. Electoral map

Top News Outlet Searches:

1. Drudge Report

2. Real Clear Politics

3. Politico

4. Breitbart

5. Huffington Post

Top States Election Results Searched:

1. Ohio

2. California

3. Florida

4. Washington

5. Wisconsin

6. Virginia

7. Arizona

8. Indiana

9. Minnesota

10. Michigan

Political Personalities Searched Beyond Presidential Candidates:

1. Paul Ryan

2. Joe Biden

3. Michelle Obama

4. Michelle Bachmann

5. Elizabeth Warren

6. Chris Christie

7. Scott Brown

8. Donald Trump

9. Mia Love

10. Claire McCaskill

Top Issues Searched:

1. Values

2. Abortion

3. Obamacare

4. Social Security

5. Healthcare

6. Military

7. Immigration

8. Economy

9. Tea Party

10. Education

Top Pundits Searched:

1. Dick Morris

2. Rush Limbaugh

3. Sarah Palin

4. Karl Rove

5. Glenn Beck

6. Sean Hannity

7. Rachel Maddow

8. Bill O’Reilly

9. Mark Levin

10. Chris Matthews


See you in four years!

– The Bing and MSN Election Teams

* comScore Media Metrix, U.S., November 6 & 7, custom analysis of unique users and page views across MSN [Homepage], MSN News and Bing Elections.

**TV outlet numbers sourced from a Nielsen report cited in the New York Times.