Wednesday night's U.S. presidential debate in Denver, Colo. was the most-tweeted-about event in American political history, dwarfing records set by this year's Democratic National Convention and Republican National Convention.
Tonight's debate was the most tweeted about event in US political history, topping the numbers from the RNC and DNC.— Twitter Government (@gov) October 4, 2012
In total, the debate between U.S. President Barack Obama and Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney generated 10.3 million tweets in 90 minutes -- a political-event record, revealed @gov, the Twitter feed for the microblogging service's government and politics team. The following chart, provided by Twitter in a Thursday blog post, charts conversation throughout the debate:
According to @gov, the following moments generated the most Twitter buzz: moderator Jim Lehrer responding “Let’s not” when Romney requested a topic, Obama joking that, “I had five seconds” when Lehrer gave the time limit, and discussion about Medicare and vouchers.
The evening's breakout topic, however, was Sesame Street's Big Bird character, which began trending after Romney name-checked the giant yellow bird. Romney admitted that he "loves Big Bird," but would still cut subsidies for PBS, which broadcasts the children's show. The quip produced a quarter million tweets mentioning Big Bird, @gov reported.
17,000 Tweets per minute for "Big Bird" and 10,000 Tweets per minute for "PBS". #debates— Twitter Government (@gov) October 4, 2012
From the outset, the presidential debate immediately began making waves on Twitter. The start of the debate topped the RNC and First Lady Michelle Obama's DNC speech in terms of tweets per minute, according to @gov.
Roughly 24 hours prior to the event, the first 2012 presidential debate had already destroyed all four 2008 debates in terms of tweet numbers. Granted, Twitter was founded in 2006, and there were far fewer users in 2008 than in 2012.
In the last 24 hours there have now been twice as many Tweets about tonight's debate than there were about all of the #debates in 2008.— Twitter Government (@gov) October 3, 2012
We're only minutes into the event and have already passed 2 million Tweets about this debate over the past 24 hours. #debates— Twitter Government (@gov) October 4, 2012