Yesterday Nielsenwire published a small study Buzz and the Ballot Box: What is Social Media’s Relationship with Politics? where they compared Web Buzz with election success of politicians. Nielsen analyzed 4 local elections:
- Senate – California: Barbara Boxer vs Carly Fiorina
- Senate – Florida: Marco Rubio vs Kendrick Meek vs Charlie Christ
- Governor – Ohio: John Kasich vs Ted Strickland
- Governor – Maryland: Martin O’Malley vs Bob Erlich
by comparing the posts on blogs, blog comments, online news sites, video and image sites, message boards/groups, and public posts on Twitter with election success. They found that for 3 out of the 4 Web Buzz predicted outcome correctly. 

It's nice to get confirmation of what I had found for the last six years from other sources!

Thanks to Sar Haidar for pointing out the article.