Trump skips debate, wins on social media

Donald Trump was the big winner across social media on the night of Jan. 28 during the seventh Republican presidential debate - despite the fact that he was not even there. 

Trump was the most searched-for candidate on Google during the debate, according to data supplied by the search engine, which co-sponsored the event with Fox News. 

Senator Ted Cruz of Texas, Senator Marco Rubio of Florida, retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson and former Florida Governor Jeb Bush also gained traction on Google. 

Trump also dominated Twitter mentions among all candidates during the debate, according to Brandwatch, a social media monitoring company. 

The billionaire businessman received roughly 130,000 Twitter mentions during the debate, according to Brandwatch. This marked a roughly 40,000-tweet decline from the previous GOP debate - which he attended. 

In all, Trump commanded 36 percent of the Twitter traffic during the debate, according to the social media company. 

Trump - who boycotted the event after Fox News refused to yield to his demand that network anchor Megyn Kelly be yanked as a moderator and after Fox News issued a sarcastic news release about the contretemps - hosted his own event in Des Moines, a fund-raiser for veterans. He was rewarded with positive social media buzz. 

Not long after he took the stage at his event at Drake University, a group of protesters chanted loudly. Trump responded: "I love the protesters in the big arena because the cameras [don't move away from] my face." 

That quip won him praise on social media, and his Twitter sentiment measured largely positive during the event, according to social media analytics firm Zoomph. 

At the debate, Ted Cruz came out swinging against...