“Write in” is quickly becoming a very popular term online.
According to Google Trends, searches for “write in” have spiked 2,800 percent in the last week. With the 2016 presidential election less than a month away, it looks like some voters are actively looking for an option that is not Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump.
So who would voters like to see in the Oval Office instead? Well, among the top related searches for “write in” are: “write in Pence,” “Bernie Sanders write in on ballot” and “Mitt Romney write in.”
Interestingly, the states in which the searches have spiked the most are not battleground states but rather states that are solidly Democratic or Republican. Vermont, Delaware and New Jersey — all typically Democratic states — were in the top 10. Same goes for Utah, Indiana and Oklahoma — all typically Republican.
The spike in searches comes during a rough week for both major party candidates. Trump is still dealing with the fallout of a leaked recording from 2005 in which he openly bragged about being able to grope women due to his celebrity status. Since then, more women have come forward to claim that Trump exhibited predatory behavior toward them over the years.
Clinton, meanwhile, saw more private campaign emails released by Wikileaks. In the emails, we saw that Democratic National Committee interim chair Donna Brazile, a former CNN contributor and Bill Clinton campaign adviser, gave a Clinton campaign employee a sneak peek at a question that was going to be asked at the CNN Democratic town hall.
In addition, Center for American Progress senior fellow John Halpin mocked American Catholics in an email to Clinton campaign chair John Podesta when he wrote, “They must be attracted to the systemic thought and severely backward gender relations.”