Twitter Reacts to the Iowa Democratic Debate

Last night’s seventh Democratic debate was a showdown between two top frontrunners: Senator Bernie Sanders and Senator Elizabeth Warren. The stage had already been set for the two going head to head at the debate by feuding between the two campaigns earlier in the week, suggesting that the formerly cordial relationship between the two senators is falling by the wayside as the competition for the Democratic nomination intensifies.

Here, we offer a preliminary analysis of the candidates' debate performances based on the Ipsos live Twitter tracker, which followed net sentiment and volume of mentions about the six candidates on the debate stage in Iowa last night in real-time. We will be able to gage more accurately how the debate helped or hindered candidates when FiveThirtyEight/Ipsos post-debate polling comes out later today.

The tension between Sanders and Warren on the stage was mirrored on Twitter as the two consistently garnered the greatest volume of mentions throughout the night, a deviation from past debates. In previous debates, frontrunner former Vice President Joe Biden tended to inspire the most commentary from Twitter, but not so last night.

Perhaps some of the attention on Twitter was inspired by the way that moderators treated Sanders as the frontrunner and sought to pit him against Warren at times. Sanders is strongly positioned in the Iowa polls, such as the January 10 Selzer & Co. poll which has him in first place in the Hawkeye State. Moderators addressed the first question of the night to him, and frequently reverted back to him for his reaction to other candidates’ commentary. Analysis of how much each candidate spoke shows that Warren and Sanders talked the most, while national frontrunner Biden spoke second to least.

Another contributing factor may be that Bernie stans were already primed for a fight on Twitter, riled up after a Project Veritas video of a Sanders staffer making inflammatory comments about what would happen in the event of Sanders winning began circulating on Twitter earlier in the day.  #Expose2020 and #Gulags – references to the video and the staffer’s comment, “There is a reason Stalin had gulags” – were trending on Twitter for most of the day. #Expose2020 continued to trend throughout the debate.

So when moderators finally set the stage for a confrontation between Sanders and Warren by asking Sanders about the Warren campaign’s claim that Sanders had told Warren in 2018 that he did not think a woman could win the presidency, Twitter was highly reactive. Sanders has denied the claim and did so again during the debate.

As seen below, after that exchange, mentions of Warren took off and net sentiment about her took a hit. A cursory glance through Twitter indicated that Bernie’s supporters were outraged by the insinuation that Sanders is lying. They were also upset by CNN’s framing of the question, and the way the moderator pivoted immediately after Sanders refuted the claim to ask Warren, “Senator Warren, what did you think when Senator Sanders told you a woman could not win the election?” The clear implication was that the moderator did not take Sanders' denial seriously.

While candidates certainly want to capture viewers’ attention during the debate, it remains to be seen whether the level of attention Sanders and Warren got on Twitter will translate into a boost for their campaigns. Of the two, Warren tended to have the most positive feedback from Twitter, so it may be that the night was more of a win for her than Sanders. That said, today, in the aftermath of the debate, #NeverWarren is trending on Twitter.

Former South Bend mayor Pete Buttigieg, on the other hand, had the most consistently positive night. Twitter took a particular shine to him in the second half of the night in response to his comments about making college free for those cannot afford it, universal childcare, the gender wage gap, and a reference to his faith in Christianity. Earlier references to Buttigieg’s military service also seemed to help him on Twitter.

Senator Amy Klobuchar also got positive feedback from Twitter. However, Buttigieg and Klobuchar did not receive the same level of attention as Sanders and Warren so it remains to be seen whether their debate performances will significantly advance their campaigns.