The conservative Drudge Report's instant poll shows Rep. Tulsi Gabbard (D-Hawaii) as the biggest winner of the first night of the Democratic presidential debates, with nearly 45 percent of the vote just after 8 a.m. Thursday morning.

The unscientific online poll shows Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) at a distant second, with 11.2 percent, followed by former Rep. John Delaney (D-Md.) at 8.6 percent and New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio with 7 percent.

At the bottom of the poll are former Rep. Beto O'Rourke (D-Texas) and Sen. Cory Booker (D-N.J.) with less than 4 percent of the vote.

Gabbard, an Iraq War veteran, gained attention for an exchange with rival Rep. Tim Ryan (D) after the Ohio congressman said the Taliban was behind the 9/11 attacks.

"The reality of it is if the United States is not engaged, the Taliban will grow. And we will have bigger, bolder terrorist acts, we have got to have some presence there," Ryan said.

In response, Gabbard said that the Taliban "was there long before we came in and will be there long after we leave."

"We cannot keep U.S. troops deployed to Afghanistan thinking that we are going to somehow squash this Taliban," she added.

"I didn't say squash them," Ryan replied. "When we weren't in there they started flying planes into our buildings."

"The Taliban didn't attack us on 9/11. Al Qaeda did," Gabbard said before they talked over one another.

Gabbard is at just 0.8 percent in the RealClearPolitics index of polls, trailing front-runner Joe Biden by more than 31 points.

She was also the most-searched candidate on GoogleTrends during Wednesday night's event in Miami.

Gabbard previously was only most-searched in her home state of Hawaii.

Warren was the most-searched candidate pre-debate.