Democrats squared off in their first presidential debate Tuesday night, and according to practically every post-debate poll released so far, Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders was the clear winner.
In MSNBC's Web-based poll, Sanders came in first with 65 percent, or 8,448 votes. In second with 20 percent was former Virginia Sen. Jim Webb, with 2,556 votes. Hillary Clinton, who was leading the pack in national primary polls before the debate, came in third with 13 percent, or 1,714 votes.
Former Maryland Gov. Martin O'Malley took fourth with 1 percent and 187 votes, and Lincoln Chafee, former Rhode Island governor and senator, came in fifth with 1 percent and 86 votes.
Sanders also came out on top in TIME's post-debate poll with 54 percent, while Webb took 33 percent and Clinton 11 percent. O'Malley garnered 2 percent and Chafee 1 percent.
Slate's poll shows Sanders with an even greater lead, 72 percent, compared to Clinton's 17 percent, Webb's 7 percent, O'Malley's 3 percent and Chafee's 1 percent.
In the right-leaning Drudge Report poll, 54.37 percent of respondents, or 163,561 voters, said that Sanders won the debate. Webb was in second with 25.32 percent, or 76,194 votes, and Clinton in third with 8.77 percent and 26,382 votes. In fourth was O'Malley with 7.18 percent, and in fifth was Chafee with 4.36 percent.
These poll and social media results are not scientific, nor are they a guarantee of anything, as they do not necessarily represent the national electorate. However, they are not completely meaningless either and show enthusiasm for a candidate following their debate performance.
Sanders won on social media, too. On Twitter, he was the most retweeted candidate of the night, and more people talked about Sanders than any other candidate, according to Twitter. Sanders also gained more new Twitter followers than all the other candidates combined during the 150-minute debate, with 35,163 new followers compared to a total of just 23,219 new followers for the other four candidate combined, according to Forbes.
Twitter and Facebook both said the "biggest social moment" of the debate was when Sanders came to Clinton's aid by saying that news media's focus on her emails is a distraction from more important issues. "What the secretary said is right. And that is the American people are tired of hearing about your damn emails," he said to standing ovation, reported CBS News.
