First presidential debate breaks Twitter record for political events

The first presidential debate of 2012 drove more Twitter traffic than any other political event so far, a spokeswoman for the social network said Wednesday.

"Tonight's debate was the most tweeted about event in U.S. political history, topping the numbers from the RNC and DNC," said Twitter spokeswoman Rachael Horwitz. 

Just a few minutes into the debate, Twitter traffic had already exceeded the tweets-per-minute earned by Mitt Romney's speech to the Republican National Convention (RNC). The Democratic National Convention drove more tweets than the RNC. Twitter later reported that the event generated a total of 10.3 million tweets related to the debate. The Democratic convention drove 9.5 millon tweets and the GOP one about 4 million, Twitter said.

First of the #debates generated 10.3 million Tweets in 90 minutes — a political-event record. Chart of peaks: twitter.com/gov/status/253…

— Twitter Government (@gov) October 4, 2012

Past political events that earned high Twitter traffic include Obama's State of the Union speeches and the Supreme Court's announced healthcare ruling earlier this year.

Twitter sentiment analysis indicates that Romney was earning more positive chatter than Obama online post-debate, according to a project from the University of Southern California's Annenberg Innovation and Signal Analysis and Interpretation Labs.

Updated Oct. 4 at 7:58 a.m.

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