Live Coverage Of The First Republican Debate

Nine other Republicans got a chance to share a stage with Donald Trump tonight, and while Trump remained the literal and figurative center of attention, he didn’t dominate the conversation to the same extent that he has in the past month. Below, I’ve compiled data from Google Trends on search traffic for the GOP candidates — both over the past month and during the two hours of the debate. In each case, I’ve benchmarked Trump’s search traffic as 100 and compared the other candidates against him. Overall during the past month, Trump has received about three times as much search traffic as the other nine candidates combined! In the debate Trump still led, but not by as much. Ben Carson got about three-fifths as much search traffic as Trump, for example. The Google search numbers didn’t totally square with how the journalists I follow on Twitter scored the debate. John Kasich was a big winner in the debate room before a home crowd in Cleveland, and also in the press file, but his search traffic was just middling. Carson, conversely, did well in search despite middling reviews from the media.

Bush had the most questions directed to him by the moderators tonight (I’m not counting interruptions, follow-ups and closing statements). Despite Carson’s complaints, he’s comfortably in the middle of the pack, while Paul appears to have needed his frequent interruptions to be heard.

One striking thing about tonight’s debate: how little of a role the economy played. Sure, there were scattered references to jobs and incomes, and there was a section of the debate that focused on economic issues. But in a sharp contrast to four years ago, the candidates often seemed eager to shift attention to other issues. On the one hand, that shouldn’t be too surprising. The economy is in far better shape than it was four years ago. Job growth has been consistently strong. (Tune in tomorrow for our regular, if bleary-eyed, coverage of the monthly jobs report!) The unemployment rate is quickly returning to normal levels. Corporate profits have been strong, and the broader economy has generally weathered the various challenges thrown at it, including a crisis in Europe and a slowdown in China. But on the other hand, Americans remain cautious about the state of the economy. Weak wage growth has left many Americans feeling that the economic recovery is leaving them behind. And although inequality has generally been seen as a Democratic issue, it seems like there should be an opening for a Republican willing to challenge President Obama’s record on the issue. I’d expected more discussion of the economy in this debate, and I hope we’ll see more the next time around.