Nov 16, 2018

Traffic to news sites quadrupled on Election Day

Man staring at four different news coverage outlets for election night coverage.

Photo: Drew Angerer/Getty Images.

Election Day traffic to national news sites saw a 311% increase, four times the visits compared to an average day in October 2018, according to data from Adobe Analytics exclusively obtained by Axios.

The big picture: The spike in Election Day-related traffic and engagement mirrored what proved to be the highest percentage of U.S. midterm-election voter turnout since 1914, per The Wall Street Journal.

By the numbers: Adobe analyzed 400 national news sites and over 150 billion visits and app launches, then compared traffic to an average day for October 2018.

  • National news sites saw five times as many visitors between 6 p.m. and midnight Eastern Time on Election Day.
  • People took more time to digest the details — four times longer than on a regular day in October.
  • States with the closest races drove the most traffic to news sites: Georgia, Virginia, New York, Arizona, Florida and Texas.
  • Adobe saw 20% of traffic coming from outside the U.S. on Election Day and the day after.

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