Republican presidential candidate and Texas Rep. Ron Paul dominated Google searches in Iowa over the past month.
Data released by Google Insights for Search shows that between Dec. 2, 2011, and Jan. 2, 2012, Paul was the most-searched candidate name in the state.
Paul currently has a close second-place Real Clear Politics polling average, behind former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, in Iowa ahead of Tuesday’s caucuses.
The libertarian favorite enjoys widespread search popularity across the 50 states and Washington, D.C. The states of Iowa, Montana, Florida, Texas and New Hampshire ranked highest for Ron Paul search interest.
“Paul’s search term totals haven’t just vastly outperformed those for his fellow candidates in Iowa, New Hampshire and nationwide over the past months; [Paul] is among the most popular News Search queries as well, exceeding even [Christmas] over the month of December,” said Google on its company blog, Google Politics.
A recent study published by Socialbakers, a social media analytics company based in Prague, also found that Paul possessed the highest “viral reach” on Facebook.
Romney was third among the GOP candidates in recent Google search interest. Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich placed second. (RELATED: Full coverage of Ron Paul)
Former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum, experiencing a surge in media and polling popularity, did not see a significant spike in search interest until Dec. 29, 2011.
As of Monday, Santorum — far behind Paul — was in second place for Google user search interest over time.