--- title: Republican Debate; Marco Rubio Won the Internet description: Marco Rubio upped his share of the chatter online during Saturday's Republican debate, according to Internet search and social media data. canonical: https://time.com/4211010/republican-debate-new-hampshire-social-media-final/ author: Daniel White article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2016-02-07T04:31:55.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-10-05T08:41:05.453Z article:section: Politics og:title: Marco Rubio Drives Internet Chatter During Republican Debate og:description: Trump dominated, but Rubio led the rest of the pack og:url: https://time.com/4211010/republican-debate-new-hampshire-social-media-final/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt215141066fbb7420/69887c83a988caccb96b679d/timepol-gop-republican-debate-new-hampshire-27.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 2020 og:image:height: 1136 og:image:alt: TIMEPOL GOP Debate Marco Rubio Donald Trump og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Marco Rubio Drives Internet Chatter During Republican Debate twitter:description: Trump dominated, but Rubio led the rest of the pack twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt215141066fbb7420/69887c83a988caccb96b679d/timepol-gop-republican-debate-new-hampshire-27.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # Marco Rubio Drives Internet Chatter During Republican 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=ffa1b5b8-59b9-4dcf-be84-e82017679abf&cr=time-nl-dcbrief-2026q3-v1) ## Video: Watch the Eighth GOP Debate in Under 5 Minutes [Watch (HLS stream): Watch the Eighth GOP Debate in Under 5 Minutes](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/q8BWIQvc.m3u8) (4:23)  _Published 2016-02-07_ by [Daniel White](https://time.com/author/daniel-white/) ## Daniel White Feb 7, 2016 4:31 AM UTC by [Daniel White](https://time.com/author/daniel-white/) ## Daniel White Feb 7, 2016 4:31 AM UTC Marco Rubio upped his share of the chatter online during Saturday’s [Republican debate](http://time.com/4210983/republican-debate-barack-obama-incompetent/), according to Internet search and social media data. Donald Trump, as usual, hogged much of the spotlight with 29% share of the Twitter conversation, but Rubio lead among the rest of the pack at 18%-four points ahead of rival Ted Cruz. Rubio had a [good showing on social media leading up to the debate](http://time.com/4210919/republican-debate-social-media-new-hampshire/), managing to capture some of the momentum from Iowa to replace Cruz as the second most mentioned Republican on social media. While Trump was the most searched candidate in America, Rubio won out in Google searches from New Hampshire, which is holding its primary race on Tuesday. > [](https://twitter.com/GoogleTrends/status/696180886937559040) New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie may have scored points with voters on Saturday, as he experienced an uptick in follower growth on Twitter—second behind Trump. Among the highest number of mentions on Twitter came when the audience booed Trump after he told former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush to be “quiet,” and Christie saying “There it is” in reference to [Rubio’s line about President Obama repeated four times](http://time.com/4210991/marco-rubio-gop-debate-new-hampshire/). > [](https://twitter.com/gov/status/696180384397131776) The Independent Journal Review’s Cheer Along tool—which [allows users to either cheer or dislike moments](http://cheeralong.com/#/) during the debate—showed much more dislikes (53%) than cheers (47%) Saturday. The debate in New Hampshire is days before the state’s primary. Social media data, particularly in-state Twitter conversation, was [somewhat predictive of the results at the Iowa caucuses](http://time.com/4203742/iowa-caucus-twitter-data/). ## Transcript Ladies and gentleman, the republican candidates.. And Dr. Be Carson please come out on the stage, he's standing there as well. Dr. Carson. [ APPLAUSE ] And Donald Trump. [ APPLAUSE ] I like Mark Rubeo, he's a smart person and a good guy. But he simply does not have the experience to be President of the United States. See, we have to remind people that we're Americans Before we're Republicans and Democrats. [ APPLAUSE ] Okay. The problem was it was to tear down- [ CROSSTALK ] Jeb wants to be, he wants to be a tough guy. He wants to be a tough guy. He has an amazing life story that has inspired millions, including me. When this transpired, I apologized to him then and I do so now. Ben, I'm sorry. Washington ethics basically says If it's legal, you do what you need to do in order to win. Eminent domain is an absolute necessity for a country. For our country. What Donald Trump did was use eminent domain to try to take the property of an elderly woman on the strip in Atlantic City. Let me just, he wants to be a tough guy, a lot of times, You'll have, and it doesn't work very well. A lot of times. How tough is it to take property from an elderly woman? Let me talk. Let me talk. Quiet. [ NOISE ] How tough is it? A lot of time. A lot of times. Why don't they ask Hillary Clinton why she believes that partial birth abortion, which is a gruesome procedure that's been outlawed in this country, she thinks it's a fundamental right? So, I'm pro life. But I believe there should be exceptions, rape, incest, and when the life of the mother is in danger. But I think we have to be cognizant of the fact there's a lot of people that are concerned about having a pro- life position without any exceptions. I would rather lose an election than be wrong on the issue of life. I stood up for the first time, and now for the last six years, we've defunded Planned Parenthood. Not talked about it, like they do in Washington, DC. Those are the facts. Here's the bottom line. This notion of Barack Obama doesn't know what he's doing is just not true. There it is. He knows exactly what he's doing. There it is, the memorized 25 second speech. I think we have a president, who as a president, is totally incompetent, and he doesn't know what he's doing. I think he has no idea what he's doing. And our country is going to Hell. The shame is that you would actually criticize somebody for showing up to work, plowing the streets, getting the [ UNKNOWN ] back on time when you've never been responsible for that in your entire life. 48 % of the people here in this state know someone who has abused heroin. My older sister Mariam, who was my half sister. Struggled her whole life with drug and alcohol addiction. This is an absolute epidemic. We need leadership to solve it. We don't win on the border. You look at New Hampshire with the tremendous problem we have with her heroin. Now when I say saturation carpet bombing, that's not indiscriminate That is targeted at oil facilities. It's targeted at the oil tankers. It's targeted at command and control locations. In the middle east we have people chopping the heads off Christians. I would bring back water boarding, and I'd bring back a hell of a lot worse than water boarding. We're not interrogating anybody right now. Guantanamo is being emptied by this President. We should be putting people in to Guantanamo, not emptying it out. This is a president who in the wake of Paris and in the wake of San Bernardino will not even use the words radical Islamic terrorism, much less focus on defeating the enemy. [ SOUND ] New Hampshire, please give me a chance to carry this message forward to the United States of America. And then I will come back my heart is to help you solve the problems of your state, and the problems of our nation. If you give me your vote on Tuesday I will do just that. I ask for your support on Tuesday to keep America and make America safer, stronger, and freer, thank you all very much. I am going to with the help of God and you Once again place the American people at the pinnacle with the government there to serve it. You vote for me and we will unite this party. We will grow the conservative movement. We will defeat Hillary Clinton, and we will leave our children what our parents left us, the single greatest nation in the history of all mankind. We can turn this country around if we get back to the constitution, and I will always stand with the American people. Against the bipartisan corruption of Washington. If I'm elected president, we will win, and we will win, and we will win. Thank you. 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