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Sanders raises $1.3 million off debate performance

Sen. Bernie Sanders raised $1.3 million in the first four hours after Tuesday night's Democratic presidential debate began, according to his campaign.

The campaign said the Vermont independent received more than 37,600 individual donations during that period and the average contribution was $34.58.

Sanders became the first presidential contenders of the 2016 race to pay six-figures to control Twitter's top trending topic, which was #DebatewithBernie, The Wall Street Journal reported. A spokesman for Twitter did not share the exact cost, but the report said the social media site has charged $200,000 for similar campaigns.

Here's what it means to buy the top trending topic on Twitter. On every user's page is the "Trends" column on the left side of the page. What Sanders purchased was the the top spot in that feed for #DebateWithBernie - marked with a "promoted" icon - for a 24-hour window. So it would look something like this:

promoted-hashtag.png
Twitter promoted hashtag biz.twitter.com

The senator's campaign said it also broke a record with the biggest traffic day on its website.

According to Facebook, the top social moment of the debate on its website was when Sanders said, "The American people are sick and tired of hearing about your damn emails!"

Sanders was referring to Hillary Clinton's private email server that she used as secretary of State that is currently under investigation.

Facebook also said Sanders was the top candidate discussed on its website during the debate and his home state of Vermont was the most engaged state on Facebook.

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