South Carolina Democratic Debate: Oh, What a Night
By: Kinley DuRant, Nate Unger, Kenedey Warde, Kyle Goodier, Lottie Smith, Hannah Abbe, Tanisha Tak, Holly Deal, Sarah Wilson, Elizabeth O’Donnell, Jackson Dugger, Abigail Godard, Alexa Fulcher, Hannah Abee, Megan Courage
The Overview:
The South Carolina Democratic Debate took place on February 25, 2020 in Charleston, SC. The seven candidates that participated included Mike Bloomberg, Elizabeth Warren, Tulsi Gabbard, Joe Biden, Tom Steyer, Bernie Sanders, and Pete Buttigieg. At the top of every hour starting at 3pm, the Social Medial Listening Center analyses the conversation surrounding the debate.
Here are some highlights on the eight hours surrounding the debate.
What to know:
- The total number of posts over all of the social media platforms at the end of the debate was 2,048,212
- Around 11 pm the demographics showed that there were 50.1% of females in the conversation and 49.9% males out of 285,509 posts during the hour.
- During the time of the debate, the conversation surrounding the candidates on Social Media reflected the following:
- Bernie Sanders (55.3% Negative)
- Joe Biden (61.3% Negative)
- Mike Bloomberg (55.3% Negative)
- Elizabeth Warren (59.8% Positive)
- Pete Buttigieg (53.7% Negative)
- Amy Kochlubar (77.9% Negative)
- Tulsi Gabbard (55.6% Positive)
The conversation surrounding the Debate offered a variety of topics. Below there are several of the themes that were discussed on a variety of platfroms:
- Bloomberg, Biden, and Sanders are currently the most talked about
- Beat Trump
- Bernie is the only one who can beat Trump
- People mostly tweeting about who they want to be elected President
- Many questioning Sanders’ ability to be President
- People generally looking forward to the debate, if only for entertainment value
- Continued conversation on Biden misspeaking about election
- Many talking about Sanders’ honeymoon in Russia
- Conversation about Bloomberg’s alleged connections to Epstein
- Many upset at moderators, claiming that they are favoring certain candidates
- Some critiquing moderators for not being able to keep control of the debate and the candidates, not asking the right questions and having enough background info to push the questions
The share of voice numbers fluctuated throughout the debate. Highlighted in red represents a decline as the debate continued and green represents an increase in shared voices toward the end (8:00 pm – 10:00 pm):
- Bernie Sanders went from 54.4% at the beginning to 39.1% in the last hour of the debate
- Joe Biden went from 13.4% to 17.8%
- Mike Bloomberg from 7.9% to 12.6%
- Elizabeth Warren from 0.1% to 14.3%
- Pete Buttigieg from 8% to 7.6%
- Amy Kochlubar from 4.3% to 4.2%
- Tom Steyer from 1.2% to 3.9%
- Tulsi Gabbard from 0.7% to 0.5%
Now to the fun stuff. A few of the themes regarding bloopers and humor:
- Many making fun of Bloomberg’s height
- Biden accidentally said he is running for the Senate
- Outside the venue, both Republican and Democrat supporters joined together to sing Sweet Caroline
- Naked Cowboy – a cheap, but iconic, attraction in Times Square (NYC) Bloomberg promises to put a Naked Cowboy in every city; the joke falls flat and exemplifies a gap between Bloomberg and a majority of Americans who didn’t understand the reference.
A variety of Tweets and Instagram posts were sent out in the duration of the analysis, ranging from support and disagreements, to memes and bingo boards. Below are some examples of the commentary.
Several examples of the Instagram topic are seen surrounding the hashtag #demdebate:
The content on social media shows many of the thoughts and opinions of not just the candidates but the public opinion, as well. As a whole, the South Carolina Democratic Debate is a stepping stone in the journey for candidacy for the next democratic nominee who will run for the President of the United States in this next coming year. South Carolina gets to be one of 12 debates that have and will happen in the next coming months.
