How Bernie Sanders dominated the Democratic debate, in charts

In Sunday night's Democratic debate, Bernie Sanders came out ahead for the first time, getting the most airtime. Unlike in previous debates, Sanders spoke more than his two opponents, getting almost three minutes more than Hillary Clinton and 16 minutes more than Martin O’Malley.

But when we splice the numbers, we can see that Sanders didn't just speak the most — he spoke most consistently during the whole debate, with the most frequent interventions. By contrast, O’Malley seemed to struggle to get some airtime between Sanders and Clinton, especially when they sparred on health care and financial regulation.

Clinton received the most attention during the debate, getting more mentions from her opponents. Sanders in particular addressed Clinton 22 times, and O’Malley mentioned her eight times. On the other hand, Clinton avoided mentioning the other candidates, referring to Sanders eight times and O’Malley just three. But she mentioned President Obama 22 times, complimenting his accomplishments and attacking Sanders's previous criticism of the president.

Donald Trump, who was mentioned several times in previous Democrat debates, was mostly ignored last night, receiving only three mentions in total.

Sanders was also the most-searched-for candidate, according to Google Trends. Search analysis is a way to get a sense of which candidates got viewers interested enough to start searching for information. In this area, Sanders came out on top, with 60 percent of searches that included a Democratic candidate's name.

We're here to shed some clarity

One of our core beliefs here at Vox is that everyone needs and deserves access to the information that helps them understand the world, regardless of whether they can pay for a subscription. With the 2024 election on the horizon, more people are turning to us for clear and balanced explanations of the issues and policies at stake. We’re so grateful that we’re on track to hit 85,000 contributions to the Vox Contributions program before the end of the year, which in turn helps us keep this work free. We need to add 2,500 contributions this month to hit that goal. Will you make a contribution today to help us hit this goal and support our policy coverage? Any amount helps.

One-Time Monthly Annual

$5/month

$10/month

$25/month

$50/month

Other

$

Yes, I'll give $5/month

Yes, I'll give $5/month

We accept credit card, Apple Pay, and Google Pay. You can also contribute via