We’re a little less than a month away from the most urgent U.S. election day in recent times, and like Ken Bone, many voters are still undecided. At least that’s what Google Trends would suggest. It reveals that searches for "write-in"—as in write-in candidate—have reached a twelve-year high this week.
According to Google Trends, "write-in" searches have surged 2,800% within the past week. What’s most interesting is the states with the most searches aren’t swing states. They are either solidly Democratic (blue) or Republican (red) states. Blue states ranking high in the searches are Delaware, New Jersey, and Vermont. Vermont is home to Sen. Bernie Sanders, for whom searches have jumped 3,000 percent in the last week. Red states most searching "write-in" include Utah and Indiana, the latter of which is home to GOP vice presidential candidate Mike Pence.
Google Trends reports that searches for "write in Mike Pence" were up over 5,000 percent. Utah, traveling back in time to the past election, is busy searching for "Mitt Romney write-in," making searches go up 4,000 percent.
ICYMI, in the past week a 2005 tape of Donald Trump making lewd comments was released, and yesterday four women have come forward to accuse Trump of touching them inappropriately without their permission. Other questionable behavior, like joking about how he'd be dating a 10-year-old girl in only a decade and bragging about walking in on naked beauty pageant contestants has also surfaced. Hillary Clinton for her part suffered through more email leaks.
Anything is possible in this election, as we’ve seen conservatives Paul Ryan and Glenn Beck pull support from Trump—with the latter saying he’ll vote for Clinton.
