The main goal of Republicans who debated tonight was, presumably, to generate interest in their candidacies. And not just to generate interest — but to generate it in the early states in particular.

So, according to google trends, what were people searching for during the Republican debate tonight? The charts below compare search interest in 4 candidates: Sanders (blue), Clinton (red), Trump (yellow), and Cruz (green). On the very right of the graph, where you can see the blue, green, and yellow lines shooting up, is the time during the debate. The rest of the chart shows search interest over the past week.

So who won the debate in the early states, as measured by online search interest?

In New Hampshire:

Looks like Bernie won the GOP debate in New Hampshire .

In Iowa:

In Iowa, we can see that although Bernie is not as clearly dominant in the search interest as in New Hampshire, but he’s right up there with Cruz and Trump . That’s without actually being in the debate.

If a Democratic candidate can get so much attention in the early states in the middle of a Republican debate, just think what could happen if we, you know, had some Democratic debates!

Nationally:

Granted, nationally Trump and Cruz got more searches during the debate. But given that Bernie Sanders wasn’t even on the stage, he clearly didn’t do so badly.

Also clearly evident over the past few days is a national shift in web searches. Since the beginning of the week, Sanders’ search traffic has noticeably gone up nationally to pretty much the same level as Trumps’ — and as high or higher than Trump in the early states .

That is what the Sanders surge looks like. Getting more (or as much) search interest than the Republicans. That’s what enthusiasm, excitement, and momentum looks like.

So if you are wondering who won the Republican debate, we can make a good case that it was Bernie Sanders.