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OpEdNews "Internet  Exit "Poll" for the MoveOn.org Democratic Primary: And the Winner Is:

We've moved our updates to this page

by Rob Kall

After the End of the First Day and a half of the Moveon.org "primary" Howard Dean Appears to be winner. He went into the race with a strong lead and held it, bringing his website activity up to a level that competes with the entire senate website's activity. Kerry, a favorite, barely inches out Kucinich, whose close finish shows he is a serious contender Al Sharpton appears to be the loser of this race, with rankings far, far below the other eight competitors.  Perhaps the most interesting outcome, with Carol Mosely-Braun finishing with a respectable web ranking ahead of what all but the top four had a week ago, is shown in this AP photo of a possible Prez/VP match-up.

The OpEdNews.com internet exit poll for the MoveOn.org primary is not really a poll. Polls sample. This is the whole monty-- the whole web activity pattern, not just based on a few hundred or thousand people. It's based on millions.It is based on the candidates' actual website activity. OpEdnews.com has been tracking the candidates' web sites since early May, using the web ranking functions of alexa.com, which is owned by amazon.com.

One thing is certain. The MoveOn.org primary has galvanized the activity of all the candidate's websites. This is good for the primary election process, good for the candidates and good for democracy. This "activation of interest has been particularly good for  Dennis Kucinich, Carol Mosely-Braun, Jonathan Edwards, and Bob Graham whose weekly rankings each jumped close to 100,000 points or more. The candidates all benefitted from this "rising tide" of interest, with big jumps in web activity across the board, with all but Al Sharpton reaching activity levels close to the top 100,000 sites (these include foreign language sites from China, Japan, Korea, etc.)

But Howard Dean, who started the spring with a commanding lead and strong, web-savvy support, the candidate with the most to lose, held on to his lead and rode the wave of pumped up internet activity to a very strong web position that actually exceeds the "reach" (number of people visiting his site per million web users) of the whole US Senate website. Dean could just as easily seen his lead be eclipsed, if any of the other contenders surged ahead, pulling greater internet interest.

Perhaps the biggest surprise of the competition was the strong showing of Dennis Kucinich. He's been labeled a candidate with no hope of success. But in one week, his web rank jumped from a  sixth to third place, with weekly average on June 19th of 171,431 to a day average (all candidates are being compared, for the primary, on day averages) of 16,388. Kerry, who Kucinich briefly pulled ahead of after the first day (based on web reach,) moved in the same week from a ranking of 50,972, to 13,288. A strong finish, but not as big a leap. Kerry is seen as one of the main contenders, particularly with his Vietnam veteran background. Kucinich is anti war.

Bob Graham, still in the back of the pack, made the biggest leap, from 361,951 to 78,864.

Carol Mosely Braun is another "winner" in this primary, since her jump in activity, with a minimal support team, shows that she is being seriously considered by internet visitors. This may not land her in position as a viable presidential candidate, but it may give her the credibility to shoot for the vice-president slot, regardless of who wins the big one.

Even the more right leaning centrist candidates Joe Lieberman and Dick Gephart showed dramatic, though not as significant improvement this week. The race is heating up... and the end of the candidate list is not yet in sight. Retired General Wesley Clark had 2% support in a New hampshire poll of 400 people (compare that to the 50-150  million+ the web rankings represent ) which placed John Kerry in the lead with 30%, and Howard Dean in second place with 21%. Carol Mosely-Braun's 

The Opednews.com internet exit poll is an experimental approach to evaluating the status of primary candidates. The moveon.org primary will be a good test of how well the poll model functions. After people voted at the Moveon.org web site, they were offered the opportunity to click on a link which would take them to their candidate's site where they can either sign up to be volunteers and or contribute campaign funds. This is part of the premise that we've based our Internet Exit Poll^tm" results on-- the hypothesis that people will click through to their candidates' site.

Moveon.org will be releasing it's official results at Noon Friday, June 27th. To be a winner, a candidate must win 50% of the votes. They have also funded a poll to be done by telephone.  Opednews.com will update the report later today as stats are updated on the web. It appears though that the current stats used are most reflective of the results of the competition. Our followup report should give an interesting picture of the new balance as web activity ebbs back to it’s more leisurely pace.

For a look at the actual statistics table this report was based on, and the site where updates are added, visit Democratic Primary Candidate Web Rank Report http://www.opednews.com/demprimary.htm .  More info on moveon.org and the process used to perform the "Internet Exit Poll^tm" Results can also be obtained there.

Rob Kall rob@opednews.com , is the editor/publisher of OpEdNews.com, a progessive news and opinion website, and organizer of cutting edge meetings that bring together world leaders, such as the Winter Brain Meeting and the StoryCon Summit Meeting on the Art, Science and Application of Story This article is copyright by Rob Kall, but permission is granted for reprint in print, email, blog, or web media so long as this credit is attached.

Builds Lead, Kerry and Kucinich Jockey for 2nd, Graham Jumps ahead

By Rob Kall, opednews.com  updated June 25th, 2003 12:10 AM

Chart is below text.

After a day and a half of the  Moveon.org "primary, in which voters are offered the option to visit the web site of the candidate they voted for, using day average rankings,  Howard Dean has extended the lead he has held for the last six weeks to a record high, with his web site activity showing that it is reaching over 12,000 unique visitors daily. John Kerry was just slightly ahead of Kucinich  after the first day, but by day two, he'd pulled further ahead, with Kucinich's site becoming more active, but not as active as Kerry's. Still, Dean's site is reaching two and half times more people on the net than Kerry.  Dean's website is almost as active as the entire www.senate.gov website, which supports all 100 US senators, with his reach per million website users actually exceeding the senate site's..

There is also surprising improvement in web site activity among other, less progressive contenders-- with Bob Graham showing a very strong jump from 8th to Fifth, but more important, his website activity increased twenty-fold., putting him ahead of Lieberman and Gephart and with in reaching distance of Edwards. Graham's leap is one of the strongest and most dynamic of the primary competition so far..

Keep in mind that Kerry, Kucinich, Edwards, Graham, Lieberman and Gephart have alternate official congressional websites that, we would assume, dilute their campaign site activity.

Carol Mosely-Braun has jumped ahead, leaving Al Sharpton over 100,000 rank points further behind.

updated June 22nd

After a few days of exposure and promotion of three candidates-- Dean, Kerry and Kucinich, in order of their being promoted by moveon.org, the web activity has increased dramatically. Dennis Kucinich, the last to get the boost of exposure from the 1.4 million strong moveon.org mailing list, seems to have been helped the most, with his current website activity at levels competitive with Dean and Kerry, the other frontrunners. 

The Moveon.org internet primary should be an interesting test of the Website rankings we've pioneered.

Dean Continues to hold the lead, with Kucinich closing in fast, jumping from sixth to neck and neck with Kerry, with the two shuffling between second or third place depending on how the data is analyzed.  Kerry is ahead on a weekly average basis, but Kucinich is ahead TODAY.

Joe Lieberman, Jon Edwards and Dick Gephart made progress, with Lieberman starting to close in on the strong web activity seen by Dean, Kerry and Kucinich. And Lieberman did not have the help of Moveon.org

Graham, Mosely-Braun, Sharpton are far behind and losing ground. Kerry still holds lead on Kucinich based on week average ranking or reach. Still, Kucinich jumped from sixth place.  Graham was hurt by a late start, holding back on even opening a website until after he officially declared his candidacy. Dean still hasn't officially declared his, but his website was up long ago. Kucinich had several up at the same time, diluting counts.

This is a horse race! 

Dean's reach of 115 per million people on the internet is far ahead, based on weekly averages of Kerry (80), Kucinich 34.5, Lieberman 16, Edwards 14, Gephart 12.  If reach can be converted to web based campaign contributions, and Moveon.org raised $8 million last year, then these range figures may be considered predictors. Still, it is very early, and besides Dean's steady lead, with his early internet entry, there has been plenty of healthy jockeying for position.

(based on  Alexa.com stats on Jun 22, 19, June 2 and May 20th, 19th, 5th, and 2nd  2003, )

Polls  are based on samples of a few hundred or a few thousand people polled. But the stats on web site activity are based on millions of people. Of course, they only reflect the interests of people who use the web. OpEdNews will be periodically tracking the web stats progress of the candidates and keeping you inform

The numbers represent the rankings of each website. Lower numbers are better. Yahoo is the number one website, google is about 5, CNN about 20, NY Times, about 75,  Fox news 135, Drudge about 230, commondreams about 2500, moveon 5100, truthout 6500, Buzzflash 7700,  democrats.com 48,000 ieamericaradio 100,000, opednews.com 92,000 (for these I am using threemonth, not one week averages.) You can check these out at alexa.com, which is owned by Amazon. Down load an alexa toolbar and you can get stats for everywebsite you visit.

6/19 Dean, Kerry and Lieberman held on to their positions as front runners. Kucinich held his number six slot. Gephart gained three positions, coming in third, with Carol Moseley-Braun passing Al Sharpton and Bob Graham.  Graham lost the most  ground, dropping from fifth to ninth place, behind everyone, even Carol Mosely-Braun and Al Sharpton.

A factor in web activity this week is the featuring of Howard Dean and John Kerry by Moveon.org. Their emailing to 1.4 million moveon.org subscribers could play a major factor in the site rankings of Dean and Kerry. 

6/2 Graham and Lieberman were the big gainers this week. In a quiet week, several candidates lost ground, some losing rank, others merely dropping in website ranking. But for four candidates there was progress. John Kerry moved to second place from third. Joe Lieberman moved to third from sixth, Jonathan Edwards moved from Fifth to fourth, Bob Graham moved from eighth to fifth,  and Carol Mosely-Braun, even though her website has obviously not been updated in over  a month, moved ahead of Al Sharpton, whose site dropped precipitously into the realm o the barely noticed-- 727,925. Dick Gephardt saw a big drop in rank, from second to seventh.

These rankings are based on weekly averages. If you take more stable three month averages, then Dennis Kucinich jumps to third place.

June 19th

rank

June 2 7:10 AM

Rank

May 20 at 12:33 PM EST

Rank

May 5

rank

Week Ending 5/4/

Candidate Name, Link to website & reach rankj day/week

week

3 months

Week

3 months

week

 3 months

rank

week

3 months

week

3 months

rank

Howard Dean (VT)110/150

255/170

5,167

225/145

75/115

16,088

35,199

1

47,931

38,169

1

29,043

39,750

1

36,322

47,326

1

40,800

48,915

1

John Kerry (MA) 35/95

110/100

22,387

70/90

30/80

50,972

112,002

2

102,800

117,226

2

79,734

127,732

3

87,156

148,429

2

146,706

154,981

2

Dennis Kucinich (OH) 35/68

90/63

22,758

70/51

65/34.5

171,431

121,388

6

163,060

141,247

6

105,304

150,099

4

128,478

186,679

4

191,206

195,978

3

Jonathan Edwards (NC) 6/22.5

55/24

47,133

35/18.5

7.5/14

155,827

158,465

5

133,697

172,767

4

132,971

198,658

5

312,428

262,426

7

237,680

264, 314

5

Joe Lieberman (CT) na/17

30/20

60,373

20/19.5

20/16

81,073

207,476

3

118,085

256,376

3

180,712

302,443

6

338,115

422,535

8

no stats

430,421

6

Dick Gephardt (MO)10/13.5

15/15

63,727

30/15

145,014

179,994

4

218,128

175,915

7

70,392

173,082

2

222,838

220, 239

5

200,332

200,332

4

Bob Graham (FL) 6/10.5

15/11.5

58,079

30/9

361,951

303, 217

9

138,506

360,644

5

406,359

461,996

8

10

no website

Carol Moseley-Braun (IL)10/10

15/9

132,499

15/6.5

224,206

390,226

7

335,795

448,707

8

665,585

428,280

9

none

571,712

9

Al Sharpton (NY)na/2.5

5.5/4

11/3

338,302

314,389

8

727,925

274,153

9

210,654

284,808

7

236,037

354,577

6

day: 125,168

402,773

7