Donald Trump wasn’t on stage for the Democratic debate Tuesday night, but he still managed to defeat Hillary Clinton in one area.
The Republican presidential front-runner’s decision to live tweet the prime-time event from his personal Twitter account led him to receive more new followers than any of the Democratic hopefuls, including front-runner Hillary Clinton.
Trump also surpassed Clinton’s follower count, reaching approximately 4.57 million followers on Twitter Tuesday evening while the former Secretary of State has 4.48 million.
According to data collected by tech company Engagement Labs and shared with the Washington Examiner, Trump gained 147,169 new followers on Twitter during the Democratic debate — more than any other Republican or Democratic candidate.
Clinton picked up 25,475 new followers during the debate, which means Trump gained nearly six times as much as Clinton did. Meanwhile, Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, who polls second in the Democratic field, grew his following by 42,730.
In one night, both Trump and Clinton picked up more than the total number of Twitter followers held by Democratic candidate Lincoln Chafee, who is followed by about 22,200 people. Another candidate, Jim Webb, has even fewer followers than that, at 19,500.
Trump also gained more than twice as many new followers on Facebook than Clinton. The leading GOP candidate picked up 16,248 new subscribers while the Democrats’ leading candidate gained 7,723.
#DemDebate was really boring but had a lot of fun live tweeting and picked up by far the most followers.
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 14, 2015
The billionaire was eager to brag about his reach on social media Wednesday morning.
In a 140-character recap of the debate, Trump said it was apparent that Clinton is “running against the “B” team [and] won’t be so lucky when it comes to me.”
