People are searching the internet less for impeachment – but support it more than ever

A whistleblower’s account of US president Donald Trump exhorting a foreign power to investigate a political rival has been corroborated. The Trump administration has refused to comply with a House impeachment inquiry. A second whistleblower complaint has surfaced. And now, a federal judge has ordered Trump to release eight years of his personal and corporate tax returns.

With the multiple scandals surrounding the embattled Trump presidency, you would assume interest in impeachment is higher than ever.

However, a first glance at some simple data suggests otherwise.

People are googling “impeachment” and “impeach Trump” less than they were a week ago, and even less than the week before that.

This graph shows Google data for the last 30 days for such key terms:

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This sharp decline looks like excellent news for the president: a barrage of negative press yet people are losing interest in impeachment! A more nuanced look, however, shows there is much more to these online trends than meets the eye.

As someone whose job it is to monitor trends like this, I often find that people’s interest in news is not as simple as these graphs make out. Whereas in the past I’ve noticed people frequently searching “how could Trump be impeached” or “what would happen” or even “what is impeachment”, the searches are becoming increasingly sophisticated. More people – particularly American searchers – are becoming well-versed in the intricate details of this rapidly developing story. Searches for people’s names spike as news breaks, as do specific legal and political terms, suggesting people are following the story extremely closely. Their increased interest is the actual reason why they look, on first glance, like they’re less engaged with impeachment proceedings.

The most recent Washington Post-Schar Scool Poll shows 58 per cent of US adults support impeachment and a plurality (49 per cent) support Trump’s removal. Most damning for Republicans who hope this will all go away, independent voters support impeachment and removal by similar margins, at 57 per cent and 49 per cent respectively. The Trump administration may hope that declining search traffic on impeachment is proof that voters don’t care about the story, but a more likely explanation is that Democrats have successfully made their case.

It is important to remember that when looking at a snapshot of data it is just that: a snapshot. Whether it’s impeachment, tax returns, or the interest in Democratic candidates which peaks round debates, just looking at the words people are searching is not enough. Look deeper and you may see a different story.

Yours,

Lucy Anna Gray

Assistant Audience Editor (US)