It shouldn’t surprise many that Donald Trump drove conversation during the Democratic debate last night. When aren’t we talking about Trump? Amobee Brand Intelligence analyzed social buzz and found that Trump, Bernie Sanders and a Mike Huckabee tweet dominated the conversation.
Top Level Democratic Presidential Debate Findings
- There were 1,866,330 tweets around the Democratic presidential debate while it was taking place, meaning between 8:30 p.m. – 11 p.m. ET on Oct. 13. That included 1,756,755 tweets around the hashtag #DemDebate, 101,511 tweets around the hashtag #CNNDebate and 4,041 tweets around Debate Watch Party. In comparison, there were 3,976,335 tweets during the duration of the last Republican presidential debate between 8 p.m. – 11:13 p.m. ET on Sept. 16, 2015, including 1,149,588 tweets around the hashtag #GOPDebate; 521,820 tweets around the hashtag #CNNDebate
- Bernie Sanders was clearly driving the real-time conversation around the debate, mentioned in 409,968 tweets between 8:30 p.m. – 11 p.m. ET on Oct. 13. During the same time period, Hillary Clinton generated 166,140 tweets; there were 143,181 tweets around Jim Webb; 60,228 tweets around Lincoln Chafee; and 56,789 tweets around Martin O’Malley.
- The reason there was less real-time interest in the Democratic presidential debate vs. the last Republican presidential debate was because Donald Trump wasn’t onstage. That doesn’t mean however that he wasn’t involved offstage. He decided to live-tweet his opinions around the Democratic debate; there were 168,912 tweets around Donald Trump between 8:30 p.m. – 11 p.m. ET on Oct. 13, more than any of the candidates actually participating in the debate, other than Bernie Sanders.
- In terms of the issues, “guns” drove the most real-time discussion; mentioned in 46,754 Democratic presidential debate associated tweets between 8:30 p.m. – 11 p.m. ET on Oct. 13. Bernie Sanders, who represents a more rural state, got into a policy disagreement with the other presidential candidates over the extent of gun control laws needed. In the same time period there were 32,111 Democratic presidential debate associated tweets around the hashtag #BlackLivesMatter, 19,580 Democratic presidential febate associated tweets around “climate change,” and 17,248 Democratic presidential debate associated tweets around “immigration.”
- Real-time activity peaked around Bernie Sanders peaked at 9:51 p.m. ET when there 9,657 tweets posts around and his statement defending Hillary Clinton, saying “The American people are sick and tired of hearing about your damn e-mails.” In total there were 27,553 presidential debate associated tweets that mentioned the “damn emails” quote between 8:30 p.m. – 11 p.m. ET.
- There were 2.5 times more real-time tweets around Bernie Sanders than around Hillary Clinton during the event. Sanders generated the most real-time reaction on social media, but Hillary Clinton generated proportionally the most positive reaction. Between 8:30 p.m. – 11 p.m. ET on Oct. 13; sentiment around the 409,968 tweets mentioning Bernie Sanders was 16 percent positive, 65 percent neutral, and 19 percent negative. On the other hand in the same time period, sentiment around the 166,140 tweets mentioning Hillary Clinton was 22 percent positive, 64 percent neutral, and 14 percent negative.
- Sentiment around the 9,864 tweets that Republican Presidential candidate Mike Huckabee received between 8:30 p.m. – 11 p.m. ET on Oct. 13 was 4 percent positive, 28 percent neutral, and 68 percent negative. Huckabee had tweeted during the debate “I trust @BernieSanders with my tax dollars like I trust a North Korean chef with my labrador!”
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