The competition for the Republican presidential nomination has so far been littered with false starts, short sprints into the lead, and a persistent reversion to uncertainty regarding a clear frontrunner.

The volume of coverage, flashes of news dominance by various campaigns provides, and, if we’re being honest, the occasionally unpredictable personalities of the current candidates, provide perfect fuel for conducting research using news analytic data from the Recorded Future index.

For example, by pulling aggregate data from the Recorded Future API for coverage of seven prominent Republican candidates and looking at them based on the daily momentum of their names in the media, we can quickly identify the timing of flameouts for the potential campaigns of Sarah Palin and Donald Trump.

Media momentum for Donald Trump and Sarah Palin - 2011

If we want to go further into identifying the real life events driving these trends in the media, we can use Recorded Future analytic tools to investigate the forces behind smaller momentum bumps for Sarah Palin in September and October. They turn out to be the last attempts to squeeze media attention from her potential, and eventual non-entry into the race.

Sarah Palin Momentum in September and October

Rather than these campaigns that experience dramatic ups and downs, maybe we want to understand how news momentum developed comparatively for a pairing like Mike Huckabee and Rick Perry? The first, a prospective candidate without the flash of other competitors and a campaign that never lifted off the ground, versus Rick Perry, a candidate that over the course of this year rose from primarily regional to national media figure.

In the view below, we’re back to charting the raw news analytic data from Recorded Future for each of the two candidates:

Momentum of Perry versus Huckabee - 2011

There are all sorts of interesting storylines that could be explored along the way – say, the sentiment of statements made about Herman Cain over the course of 2011? But the last week or two provides one of the most intriguing twists in the contest so far: the unexpected resurgence of Newt Gingrich and renewed support that suggests he should once again be considered a viable option for the nomination.

News momentum around Newt Gingrich during 2011 - Click to see live

It’s an incredible shift in the landscape for the Republican candidacy given the total dearth of interest in him as a candidate since June when the bulk of his staffed resigned. The recent week actually carries the highest news momentum so far this year for Gingrich. What remains to be seen is whether his wave (or that of any competitor for that matter) will last long enough to secure the nomination.

Looking Forward

We think it’s useful to contextualize what’s taken place in the race thus far, but there’s also this intriguing aspect of identifying which candidates are most frequently being discussed with the future in mind. So, on the heels of last night’s CNN debate, let’s take a look at the aggregate predictions mentioning a candidate and “republican nomination” from November through the 2012 elections. What names are most associated with the Republican nomination?

Again, we’re displaying the results from web content related to the Republican nomination published since November (click through to set up an alert and follow along), and the results are limited to display results for the top 12 individuals. The distinction between columns is that “Events” are any mention of the person while “Predictions” represents only mentions of a person along with a time point in the future (i.e., “next week”, “2012″, “next fall”).

Summarizing some of the above results:

• Mitt Romney is mentioned most in relation to “republican nomination,” both overall and in the context of a future event. Seemingly good news for the candidate most often described as the safe frontrunner.
• Several supposed non-players – Sarah Palin and Donald Trump – still appear prominently in discussions related to the nomination.
• Herman Cain is the third most mentioned candidate since November, but ranks eighth when evaluating future facing statements. Perhaps not a good sign for his campaign.

We’ll be following this issue closely to see if shifts in the future facing statements around a political campaign may be an indicator of success for a candidate’s bid. We’d love to hear your thoughts!