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The Final 2012 Presidential Debate

Tuesday, 23 October 2012

Tonight, the presidential candidates came together for the last of the debates to discuss foreign policy. And while it was a busy evening with several events competing for viewers’ attention, the political conversation on Twitter remained strong with 6.5 million Tweets sent about the 90-minute debate this evening.

Specific moments generating the greatest volume of conversation throughout the night were:

  • 105,767 TPM - 9:45pm EDT - Obama: “We also have fewer horses and bayonets”
  • 102,339 TPM - 10:31pm EDT - Schieffer: “I think we all love teachers”
  • 87,040 TPM - 9:58pm EDT - Romney on Obama’s “apology tour”

The Final 2012 Presidential Debate

Now take a look at percentage of debate conversation broken out by topic:

  • Foreign Policy - 54%
  • The Economy - 20%
  • Terrorism - 9% Taxes - 7%
  • Energy and the Environment - 4%

As usual, influencers from both sides of the aisle were able to join the conversation on Twitter:

And as we’ve seen throughout the big events during this election, parody accounts appeared almost instantly, capturing the debate zeitgeist in real-time:

Thus concludes this election’s presidential debates. Keep following @gov as we’ll have a lot more to share heading into election day.

Posted by Adam Sharp (@AdamS)
Head of Government, News & Social Innovation