Pence v Kaine - who won the social media debate?
During the first and only vice presidential debate of the 2016 general election, Facebook and Twitter were talking mostly about the GOP ticket’s representative, Mike Pence, although Google trends showed a different result.
As was the case in the first presidential debate, the Republican ticket dominated the conversation on Twitter, according to data released by the platform, with @Mike_Pence grabbing 60 percent of the conversation, compared to @TimKaine’s 40 percent. Pence picked up 22,000 new Twitter followers, while Kaine attracted 15,000 new followers.
As for the most Tweeted topics during the #VPdebate, foreign affairs topped the list, followed by the economy, terrorism, reproductive rights, and immigration.
On Facebook, Kaine dominated 46 percent of the conversation, once again slipping behind Pence’s 54 percent. But, Facebook users differed from their Twitter counterparts when it came to the top issues. Here, taxes received most of attention, followed by Russia and Ukraine, Iraq, Syria and ISIS, the economy, and health care.
Google trends told a different story, though -- more users googled Kaine (55 percent) than Pence (45 percent), though search interest in Trump was higher than in Clinton, 65 - 35 percent. Before the debate, Trump had said he would be live-tweeting the debate.
The debate itself was of high interest on Google, which said that its top five trending searches were all related to the debate:
1. Virginia flag +950%
2. Governor Pence +900%
3. Pence +800%
4. Mike Pence +750%
5. Donald Trump Twitter +750%
Kaine also ended up winning the overall top social moment, with this jab at Pence: “He is asking everybody to vote for somebody that he cannot defend.”