--- title: Republican Debate: Here's Which Candidate Won Google Searches description: During a 10-candidate debate Thursday, you can easily see who generated the most audience interest in Google search. canonical: https://time.com/3988239/gop-debate-google-donald-trump/ author: Tessa Berenson article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2015-08-07T03:18:42.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-10-05T08:31:35.113Z article:section: Politics og:title: Here's Who Won Google Searches During the Debate og:description: The top five candidates who were searched during the Republican debate. og:url: https://time.com/3988239/gop-debate-google-donald-trump/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltcc94248a20941e8b/69885e4bcd1bbadfe26fc9f9/candidates-gop-debate.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 4963 og:image:height: 2792 og:image:alt: Republican 2016 presidential candidates debate og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Here's Who Won Google Searches During the Debate twitter:description: The top five candidates who were searched during the Republican debate. twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltcc94248a20941e8b/69885e4bcd1bbadfe26fc9f9/candidates-gop-debate.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # Here's Who Won Google Searches During the Debate > Sponsored content. 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Brief is free at time.com/newsletters. ### Sources * TIME Newsletters: [time.com/newsletters](/c/time-nl-dcbrief-2026q3/newsletters?i=c8d7345b-d680-4ba0-9657-6b98ebd3b5e3&cr=time-nl-dcbrief-2026q3-v1) ## Video: 2016 Republican Presidential Debate in Under 3 Minutes [Watch (HLS stream): 2016 Republican Presidential Debate in Under 3 Minutes](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/AWg12u3O.m3u8) (2:31)  _Published 2015-08-07. 2016 Republican Presidential Debate in Under 3 Minutes_  by [Tessa Berenson](https://time.com/author/tessa-berenson/)  ## Tessa Berenson Aug 7, 2015 3:18 AM UTC  by [Tessa Berenson](https://time.com/author/tessa-berenson/)  ## Tessa Berenson Aug 7, 2015 3:18 AM UTC The 2016 election is still far away, and it’s a crowded field of 17 candidates. But you can easily see who generated the most audience interest in the debates tonight, according to Google search trends. During the time of the debate, the top five candidates by searches were Donald Trump, Ben Carson, Ted Cruz, Jeb Bush and Marco Rubio.  Rounding out the list, in order: John Kasich, Rand Paul, Chris Christie, Scott Walker and Mike Huckabee. Earlier in the evening, Carly Fiorina dominated search traffic during the undercard debate.  General consensus on social media was that Fiorina won the “happy hour debate,” with this Google traffic as evidence. The most notable spike from a candidate besides Fiorina, however, was by Lindsey Graham. The surge in Google searches for Graham happened around the time he spoke about his personal background, when both of his parents died in his early twenties and he relied on Social Security. ## Transcript I don't want my marriage or my guns registered in Washington. Why don't I talk about race that often I said it's because I'm a neurosurgeon. To the families of those who died in that war who say they liberated a country and deposed a ruthless dictator, how do you look at them now and say your brother's war was a mistake? Knowing what we know now, it was a mistake. How is Hilary Clinton gonna lecture me about living paycheck to paycheck? I was raised paycheck to paycheck. [ APPLAUSE ] [ MUSIC ] We need to build a wall, and it has to be built quickly. And I don't mind having a big beautiful door in that wall so that people can come into this country legally. We need to keep illegals out. I also believe we need a fence. The problem is if El Chapo builds a tunnel under the fence we have to be able to deal with that too. Mr. Trump is touching a nerve because people want the wall to be built. People want an end to illegal immigration and they want to see it end and we all do. A 4 % growth strategy means you fix a convoluted tax code. The first thing we need to do is we need to even out the tax code for small businesses so that we lower their tax rate to 25 % just as we need to lower it for all businesses. You get in and you change every aspect of regulations that are job killers. We can get rid of the internal revenue service if we would pass the fair tax which is a tax on consumption rather than attacks on people's income. We need to repeal and replace Obamacare. Iran is not a place we should be doing business with. To me we terminate the deal on day one, you reinstate the sanctions authorized by Congress. I think President Obama gave away too much, too early. I would have never released the sanctions before there was consistent evidence of compliance. The world has a burgeoning nuclear power, but the Iranians have said is we will wipe Israel off the face of the map and we will bring death to America. As governor of the state of Florida, I defunded Planned Parenthood. I created a culture of life in our state. I was in business, they asked me a question as to pro life or choice. And I said if you let it run that I hate the concept of abortion. I hate the concept of abortion. What I have advocated is that we pass a law in this country that says that all human life At every stage of its development is worthy of protection. In fact, I think that law all ready exists, it's called the Constitution of the United States. 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