Hillary Clinton dominated Google searches in South Carolina during Monday night’s first presidential debate, surpassing Donald Trump as the top-searched candidate in the state. The only exception was the Augusta metro area, which includes Aiken and Edgefield counties, according to Google Trends.
Hillary Clinton was the top-searched candidate in all 50 states after the debate.
Besides her name, the top trending search for Clinton in South Carolina was “Hillary Clinton dot com,” after she asked viewers to follow along in real time on her website to fact-check Trump’s statements. Another top search was “Hillary Clinton fact checker.”
The top trending search for the Republican nominee in South Carolina was “Did Donald Trump support the Iraq War.”
When Clinton said that Trump supported the war in Iraq, he called her statement “mainstream media nonsense,” likely triggering the spike in searches for his record on the conflict. There is no evidence that Trump ever expressed public opposition for the war, but he did express lukewarm support.
In the last year, South Carolinians’ most frequent searches have included “Hillary Clinton seizures,” “Hillary Clinton indictment” and “Hillary Clinton dead,” according to Google Trends. Among the most frequent Trump queries over the last 12 months were “Donald Trump SNL” and “Donald Trump family.”