Before Americans head to the polls in the U.S. midterm elections, many of them are taking to Google to ask “Where do I vote?” — and even more of them are asking that question in Spanish.
“Dónde votar” was Google’s top trending search Tuesday, with a 3,350 per cent increase from the day before. On Monday, over 200,000 searches for the term took place.
The English questions “Where do I vote today?” and “What time does voting start today?” were also top trending terms.
But the spike in the Spanish term coincides with a Reuters/Ipsos poll that shows Hispanics are more interested in voting this year than in the last U.S. congressional midterm elections in 2014.
It could be a big boost for the Democrats, because the poll also found that Hispanic voters are nearly twice as inclined to support Democrats for the House of Representatives as Republicans.
Democrats and Republicans are locked in a tight battle for both the House of Representatives and the Senate.
READ MORE: U.S. midterm elections — what they are, how they work and why they matter
Key trending issues
Google also released a list of trending political issues dominating the internet searches of Americans.
Over the past few days, health care and immigration were battling for the top spot. Overall, health care was the most searched for.
Other topics included social security, abortion and minimum wage.
A map provided by Google shows immigration as the top issue for 25 per cent of districts including Texas and other districts along the western U.S. coast searched for immigration.
Most eastern districts were searching for healthcare.
Trump-related search terms also focus on immigration
Over the past week, Google’s top trending queries on Donald Trump include “Trump racist ad” and “Trump ad pulled.”
The aforementioned ad, which Trump tweeted out Wednesday night, included news footage of Luis Bracamontes, an unrepentant cop-killer, and that of a migrant caravan — falsely conflating the two.
It was immediately derided as racist by analysts and TV stations have pulled the ad.
Bracamontes’ name was also a breakout search term.
—with files from Reuters
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