Washington state Gov. Jay Inslee made his debate-stage debut Wednesday night, along with nine other 2020 Democratic presidential hopefuls.
How did he fare? Sure, you could listen to the pundits who started dissecting the feel of the room before all the lights were even off. But numbers help tell a story, too. Here are five that best illustrate Inslee’s debate performance:
5
The number of minutes Inslee spoke, if you round up. It was the shortest total speaking time of any candidate onstage that night. While some of Inslee’s fellow “lower pollers” interjected to grab more attention, the Washington governor opted for PNW politeness, raising his hand when he had something to say but hadn’t been called on.
New Jersey Sen. Cory Booker and former Rep. Beto O’Rourke of Texas got the most time, with 10.9 minutes and 10.3 minutes respectively, according to The Washington Post.
Democratic National Committee Chairman Tom Perez expressed concern Thursday about the wide disparities in speaking time among the candidates.
875
The number of words Inslee spoke, according to data-crunching site FiveThirtyEight.com. Just as he held the floor for the fewest minutes, Inslee also spoke the fewest words of any candidate Wednesday night.
Three of the moderators — Chuck Todd, Rachel Maddow and Lester Holt — even outpaced Inslee in number of words spoken, though in Todd’s case that might have been because he had to repeat a question several times due to technical difficulties.
4
The number of times Inslee mentioned President Donald Trump — including in one of the biggest applause lines of the night, when he called Trump the greatest threat to the United States’ security.
Inslee ties with Booker and O’Rourke, who each also mentioned Trump four times, according to the NBC News tally. The greatest number of Trump mentions came from Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar, with nine, and Rep. Tim Ryan of Ohio, with seven. New York City Mayor Bill De Blasio and Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren didn’t mention Trump at all.
7
Of the 10 candidates onstage, Inslee garnered the seventh-most Google searches nationwide during the debate.
Booker was Googled the most, followed by Rep. Tulsi Gabbard of Hawaii and O’Rourke. Klobuchar and former Rep. John Delaney of Maryland were Googled the least.
49
Percentage of Americans who said in a Morning Consult poll released Monday that they had never heard of Inslee. He needed those Google searches.
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