Grade the candidates in last night's Fox News/Google Debate

Last night’s Fox News/Google Debate brought your top-voted questions to the Republican candidates right here on YouTube. In the lively two-hour debate, over a dozen of your questions were posed to the candidates, while search trends and question data provided more information on the issues you were most interested in.

Now it’s time to grade the candidates on their answers. Did they answer the questions directly? Did they answer them well? Visit youtube.com/foxnews now to watch individual clips of each question-and-answer exchange and provide feedback on how the candidates did.

The Fox News/Google Debate was the most-watched debate of the 2011 season, averaging 6.1 million viewers, according to Nielsen Media Research. If you missed it, you can also watch the full broadcast here:



In addition to voting on videos of the debate, you’ll find a “Pulse” tab on the channel that shows data visualizations of the questions you submitted. You’ll also be able to watch clips from our online show with Shannon Bream and Chris Stirewalt, where we examined your questions and issue searches in more detail.

During the debate, we also looked at what searches were spiking on Google. Of all of the candidates names, the underdog former Governor of New Mexico Gary Johnson’s name saw the biggest spikes.



Viewers were also interested in finding out more about Herman Cain’s “9-9-9” plan -- every time he mentioned the plan, searches for it on Google spiked.




Check out more search trends on the Google Public Sector Blog.

As the GOP primary continues to heat up, you’ll be able to find information straight from the candidates right here on YouTube. Our next scheduled debate is with PBS and the Des Moines Register on January 12th in Iowa -- stay tuned for more information on how you can participate.

Steve Grove, Head of News and Politics, YouTube, recently watched Fox News/Google Debate (Full Length)

The Fox News/Google Debate live tonight on YouTube: GOP candidates answer your questions

Cross posted from the Official Google Blog.

Since we announced the Fox News/Google Debate on September 1, people across the country have submitted more than 18,000 questions to the Fox News YouTube channel on topics ranging from immigration reform, to health care, to foreign aid to social security. Tonight, the Republican presidential candidates will answer those questions in the Fox News/Google Debate, which will be live-streamed on YouTube and broadcast on Fox News Channel starting at 9pm ET. We’ll also have an online pre-debate show starting at 8:30pm ET, featuring Fox News’s Shannon Bream and Chris Stirewalt, and Steve Grove, YouTube’s Head of News and Politics.

Even if you’re watching on TV, you can visit youtube.com/foxnews during the debate to vote on real-time polling questions and submit live commentary. Throughout the evening, we’ll share Google politics-related search trend information and public data that will provide context to the issues discussed. Fox News moderators will ask specific questions that were submitted by citizens through YouTube, and we’ll be looking at overall trends that emerge from the questions in aggregate. To give you an idea, here’s a look at the most popular words people used in their submissions (the bigger the word, the more often it was used)


Flex your democratic muscle and tune in to youtube.com/foxnews tonight at 8:30pm ET for a political debate that puts you in the driver’s seat of the discussion.

Ramya Raghavan, YouTube News and Politics Manager, recently watched “Candidate Question IRS.”