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Much of the news coverage immediately following this week’s presidential debate focused on who won the contest between Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump as well as on the Republican candidate’s debunked claim that Haitian immigrants were eating pets in Springfield, Ohio. However, viewers’ top interest during and immediately after the debate, measured by online searches, centered on the issue of abortion, shows an analysis by New York University researchers.
Prior to the debate, the most-searched election topic pertained to crime. However, during and after the 90-minute event, online users’ top preference shifted to abortion—a topic both candidates spoke about multiple times—with searches about abortion rights, existing laws by state, and “post-birth abortion” among the most common queries related to this issue.
The study, conducted by NYU’s Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences, reveals how candidates’ words can alter the focus of viewers, whose interests may diverge from what’s highlighted in media accounts.
“How debates are reported on and what viewers care about may indeed coincide, but they also differ in crucial ways,” says Anasse Bari, a clinical professor in computer science at the Courant Institute and director of NYU’s Predictive Analytics and AI Research Group, which conducted the study.
But the authors add that while abortion was the most-searched topic, Google searches for “Springfield” grew 16 times during the debate while those for both “Haiti” and “Haitians” increased threefold during the same period. However, they note, these terms, unlike abortion, immigration and Project 2025, were likely not on many voters’ minds prior to the event so significant growth is not surprising.
The research also showed the following:
- Immigration was the second-most searched topic—after abortion—during and after the debate, with searches focusing on immigration bills, candidates’ standing on the issue, and German immigration laws—the latter cited by neither candidate during the debate.
- During the debate, search queries about Project 2025 surged by approximately 900% compared to the period before the debate. Trending searches included “Project 2025 website,” “Project 2025 key points,” “Project 2025 summary,” and “What is Project 2025.” These queries trended in several states, with the highest activity coming from swing state Pennsylvania as well as Connecticut, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New Hampshire, and Ohio.
- During the debate, the top queries about Vice President Harris were, in order: “Kamala Harris’s father,” “Kamala Harris’s childhood,” “Kamala Harris and fracking,” and “Kamala Harris’s economic plan.”
- During the debate, the top related queries about former President Trump were about his inheritance and his time at the “Wharton School of Finance.”
“How debates are reported on and what viewers care about may indeed coincide, but they also differ in crucial ways,” says Anasse Bari, a clinical professor in computer science at the Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences and director of NYU’s Predictive Analytics and AI Research Group.
The researchers also examined Reddit posts in order to understand how online users felt, overall, about different issues they were writing about. “Positive sentiment” indicated that the text surrounding the topic conveyed positive emotions, support, or approval (e.g., using words such as “improving” when referring to inflation). “Negative sentiment” suggested that the words surrounding the topic conveyed negative emotions, resistance, or criticism. “Neutral sentiment” marked an absence of either positive or negative sentiments. The researchers also considered where sentiment stood before the debate—in order to understand how it shifted as a result of the event.
The study’s sentiment findings included the following:
- The positive sentiment score related to the economy increased by 14.34% during the presidential debate, reflecting a slightly more positive reaction than existed before the exchange. However, after the debate, it rose by an additional 34.43%, indicating a much more positive view of the economy as a result of the exchange.
- Regarding inflation, the sentiment score dropped by 31.25% during the presidential debate, indicating a shift toward an overall more neutral sentiment. However, after the debate, the sentiment increased by 23.39%, suggesting a partial return to a more positive stance.
- The sentiment score for immigration dropped by 81.78% after the debate, shifting from very positive, where it stood prior to the debate, to neutral overall.
The study’s other authors included researchers at the Courant Institute’s Predictive Analytics and AI Research Group: Charles Wang, Suryavardan Suresh, Harrison Gao, Atmaj Koppikar, Yifei Xu, Dev Pant, and Anway Agte.
Methodology
To gauge online users’ interests and sentiments three hours before the debate, during the debate, and two hours after the debate, the researchers analyzed and measured Reddit posts, Google search trends, and YouTube comments and also tracked trending tags on X related to the debate and each candidate. They also created indices for each candidate and key debate topics, analyzing data in near real-time, starting three hours before and continuing during the debate. To measure the mood of these users, the researchers applied natural language processing and sentiment analysis algorithms to the online posts.