The “Colbert Bump,” as described by one wiki, is the “curious phenomenon whereby anyone who appears on The Colbert Report gets a huge boost in popularity.” We at Google Politics & Elections wondered if this rule applies even to Stephen Colbert, who announced Thursday night he would set up a presidential exploratory committee after a recent poll found him leading GOP candidate Jon Huntsman in South Carolina.

To test this, we looked at South Carolina Google search data to see if Colbert experienced any noticeable spike in searches for his name. The results were dramatic: Since Thursday, Colbert saw a 189% jump in searches in the state, while Paul, Santorum, Romney, and Gingrich all saw declines during the same period.


In total searches, Colbert trailed all four of these candidates on Thursday, but as of Friday, he was outperforming everyone but Paul and Romney in South Carolina.


Will this Colbert Bump be sustained? We’ll check in early next week to see how Colbert is performing against his real GOP counterparts.