Estimated read time: 1-2 minutes
This archived news story is available only for your personal, non-commercial use. Information in the story may be outdated or superseded by additional information. Reading or replaying the story in its archived form does not constitute a republication of the story.
SALT LAKE CITY — Lots of people joke about moving to Canada if things don't go their way, but would they actually do it?
As the results for Super Tuesday rolled in, it appears a large number of Americans were exploring their options. Google data editor Simon Rogers tweeted that searches for the phrase "how can I move to Canada" jumped 350 percent in a period of four hours.
Searches for "how can I move to Canada" on Google have spiked +350% in the past four hours #SuperTuesday
— Simon Rogers (@smfrogers) March 2, 2016
In fact, Google Trends tweeted on Wednesday that the search for "move to Canada" reached its highest point ever in Google history. It reported that the last spike was in November 2004, when George W. Bush won his re-election campaign.
Searches for "Move to Canada" are higher than at any time in Google history #SuperTuesdaypic.twitter.com/0KBJPrHdEO
— GoogleTrends (@GoogleTrends) March 2, 2016
The search demand was so great that the Canadian government's immigration and citizenship website was experiencing delays, according to Mashable. An error message saying the government was working to resolve the issue was still visible on the page Wednesday morning.
Lol, Canada's immigration website is getting slammed pic.twitter.com/rk68DJjSGR
— Micah Singleton (@MicahSingleton) March 2, 2016
The greatest regional interest in the search term comes from Massachusetts, where Donald Trump secured 22 delegates with 49.2 percent of the vote Tuesday, according to Google Trends. The next most popular location was Washington state, followed by California and Texas.
After tonight, it sounds like we're gonna need Canada to buy us a wall too.
— Merlin Mann (@hotdogsladies) March 2, 2016