Google Trends Data Suggests Increasing Voter Registrations Among Latinos

New voter registrations are sometimes seen as a proxy for demographic change. Interestingly, the past week has been witness of a large increase in interest in voter registrations, with Google GOOGL GOOG trends data showing a marked surge in related surges.

As of Wednesday evening, the leading markets in terms of “register to vote” searches were all heavily Hispanic/Latino: Texas, California, Nevada, Arizona and Florida. Thursday came with the same pattern.

New York Times author Nate Cohn shared a chart illustrating what some have called the “Alicia Machado Effect,” which establishes a “strong correlation between Hispanic population and recent voter registration searches.”

Source: NYT

This is an fascinating shift from last month’s voter registration searches, dominated by predominantly white, Northern states, which typically boast the highest registration and turnout rates – contrary to the states where searches spiked this week.

“Whether this trend will last may hinge on what caused it in the first place,” Cohn explained. “Hillary Clinton’s campaign plainly hopes to motivate Latino registration with the story of Alicia Machado, who was harshly criticized by Donald J. Trump as Miss Universe 1996 and again after the presidential debate this week. But if that is the main cause, the surge of Hispanic interest in voter registration compared with other Americans could fade along with the story.”

Of course, this data is nothing but a hint, and might not translate into higher Hispanic registration figures. Official data will be out in a few more weeks. However, polls have suggested new voter registrations among Latinos have in fact risen in relation to the previous presidential election.