Last week I wrote about Yahoo! Buzz, which in addition to tracking celebrity fandom across the web also tracks searches for political candidates (displayed in the excellent Political Dashboard). The service has the uncanny ability to know, for example, how many New Hampshire women were searching for "Hillary Clinton" the eve before the New Hampshire primary, and for accurately depicting the level of buzz surrounding candidates before the pundits and pollsters get there.

Go here for more about Yahoo's buzz-tracking methodology.

I got my hands on some new Buzz data showing that the day of the Michigan primary, Mitt Romney led the GOP candidates in web searches among Michigan Republicans, with almost twice as many searches for Romney than for John McCain, who was followed by Ron Paul and Mike Huckabee.

It's interesting to note that though Huckabee had the most buzz in Michigan in the days surrounding the Iowa caucuses, he's been falling steadily ever since.

After a brief dip following New Hampshire, Romney took off in Michigan, and McCain and Paul also started an ascent, though not as impressive as Romney's. Meanwhile, Huckabee plateaued.

Knowing what we know about Michigan, we can look back at this data and see that Mitt Romney was steadily gaining in popularity.

So as we look ahead to Nevada, let's take a look at the Buzz data there:

[UPDATE] Here's a chart with Ron Paul, Rudy Giuliani, and Fred Thompson in the mix.

There's been a significant uptick in Romney buzz since the Michigan primary, while McCain and Huckabee have flatlined. (I don't yet have a chart that includes Ron Paul; I'll update if I get one.)

And in South Carolina:

Here things are more complicated. Huckabee has seen a drop in buzz since Michigan, while McCain and Romney are both moving up and Ron Paul dropped significantly.

I'm loathe to make any predictions based on this data, but it has served as an accurate predictor, or illustrator, of what actual offline support looks like. If these graphs are any indicator*, Romney's campaign is on the up-and-up, and he'll be the man to beat in Nevada. In South Carolina it looks like it's anyone's game at the moment.

*Of course, we could be completely wrong.