17 Oct The 2012 Town Hall Presidential Debate As Seen Through Social Media
Last night’s town hall forum and second presidential debate turned out to be quite the fight. Trying to make up for his performance in the first debate, President Obama came out swinging while Governor Romney kept up his dukes in strong defense. Sparring with statistics, the 2012 presidential candidates kept the energy high, with Twitter reaching out a hand to be tagged in.
As far as discussion around the candidates was concerned, mentions were far more equal between the two parties. Of the more than 8 million tweets during the debate, Democrats and Republicans scored 48% and 52% of mentions respectively (a drastic change from the 74% and 26% split between Democrats and Republicans in the first presidential debate). According to the Twitter Government account, @gov, tweets peaked at over 109,000 per minute. The debate also dominated the Twittersphere. In a surprising share-of-voice comparison, the MLB American League Champion Series only had 2% of mentions compared to the debate’s 98%.
However, conversation wasn’t limited to just Twitter. Successful Facebook pages and Tumblr blogs were inspired by the debate, and a discussion thread in r/politics was the highest ranking post on Reddit.
Check out more social highlights surrounding the debate in our infographic below. What was your favorite moment from last night?
Artwork by: Dave Ryan and Bob Perman
Copy by: Caroline Monday, Craig Carter, and Win Pratt
Insights & Analytics by: Greg de Lima, Ken Tebo, Ryan Sweeney, and Heather Romaine
Monitoring by: Scott Briggs, Christy Buckland, and Ann Marie Taepke
