Election campaign on Google: These parties and candidates were searched for most often

Each of your footprints online is part of a stream of data that gives us a live insight into society. Google Trends is not an exact science, but it still allows us to feel the pulse of Switzerland a bit, especially before a big event like this Sunday’s federal elections.

But sometimes we were surprised by what Switzerland Googled during the election campaign.

That moved you.

Switzerland’s largest party, the SVP, was by far the most popular on Google over the past seven days, followed by Switzerland’s second largest party, the SP. Apart from the two strongest parliamentary forces, Google searches do not match election predictions. Only a few people inquired about the Greens. What stands out, however, is the EDU, which was especially popular in Bern. The increase in the number of searches is likely due to the “Stop Terrorism – Ban Hamas” petition filed by the Christian party.

A look at searches over the past twelve months shows this: SVP dominated Google throughout the year. The questions exploded in mid-August when the election song “Dance with the SVP!” was released, which was reminiscent of the world hit 'We Are Family'.

During the voting campaign in June, both the SVP and the SP recorded a strong spike in the number of searches. However, the two opposing poles each suffered a defeat: the SVP was unable to prevent the climate protection law, the SP lost the battle against the OECD minimum tax.

He uses X to polarize: Andreas Glarner. The SVP National Council deliberately spread provocations during the election campaign, including against the planned gender day in Stäfa, a drag queen lecture and against the green politician Sibel Arslan.

Glarner is closely followed by Green National Councilor Meret Schneider, who is also very active and enjoys cynical discussions about X. After a war of words with Andreas Glarner, her X account was recently temporarily blocked.

In fact, there is not only a current federal councilor named Alain Berset in Switzerland, but also a second politician with the same name: Alain Berset, candidate for the GLP National Council, from the canton of Lucerne. He is the third most searched candidate on Google. However, since the majority of searches come from the canton of Neuchâtel, it can be assumed that the federal councilor was the Alain Berset we were looking for.

The war of aggression against Ukraine has led to a neutrality debate in Switzerland. Discussions included the adoption of EU sanctions against Russia and the discussion of arms transfers. In addition to the war in Ukraine, social policy issues such as rent increases, purchasing power, and wage and age policies were of particular importance.

The gender star – the SVP's hot topic – was of little importance on Google. Of the social issues, media, migration and racism were of paramount importance.

What is surprising is that retirement planning has a much higher search rate among economic topics than inflation.