The Third 2012 Presidential Debate As Seen Through Social Media

The third and final Presidential Debate in Boca Raton, FL proved to be the least exciting of the series, despite the 8.2 million mentions around the debate. Though the Twittersphere found Romney a more interesting topic of discussion, early polls from both CBS and CNN put Obama on top as a winner. Keeping with the rolling trend, however, sentiment for both parties hovered right around 75% negative. The candidates themselves (or, at least, their campaign teams) did actually up the ante with live tweeting this week. Discussion around Bob Schieffer, however, was about as quiet as the moderator himself.

Tumblr and LiveStream managed to promote a very successful, crowd-sourced live-GIFfing blog that took off instantly online. Conversation on Reddit was lively, but had still waned from previous weeks. Trending topics included #horsesandbayonets, #whopper, and #apologytour, to name a few.

If you’re interested in more information on the debate, and things like how chatter compared to that of Monday Night Football and Game 7 of the NLCS, check out the infographic below.

Thanks for following us over the course of these debates. If you’re into this kind of thing, make sure see our recent related post on the social media presence of the candidates’ wives.

Artwork by: Bob Perman

Copy by: Caroline Monday and Win Pratt

Insights & Analytics by: Ken Tebo, Ryan Sweeney and Bobby Mercader

Monitoring by: Scott Briggs, Christy Buckland, and Ann Marie Taepke



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