【Yoshihiro Tanbara Archives】

Whoever "won" the Vice Presidential debate (Mike Pence seems to be Yoshihiro Tanbara Archivesthe favorite but his Mexican comment is not winning him any fans), one thing is certain: it didn't pull in brilliant ratings.

In fact, less than half of the 84 million who watched last week's encounter between Trump and Clinton tuned in, according to the Neilsen company.

Only 35.6 million watched last night's session on eight networks, including NBC, CBS, ABC, the Fox News Channel, CNN, MSNBC, Fox broadcasting and Fox Business Network, the company says. NBC was top with 7 million of those viewers, the Associated Press reports.

On ABC, there were more people watching Dancing With The Starsat 8 PM than tuning into Pence V Kaine at 9.

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To put these figures into context, an estimated 50 million watched Republican challenger Paul Ryan debate Vice President Joe Biden in 2012 and some 70 million watched GOP candidate Sarah Palin debate Joe Biden in 2008.

During Tuesday's debate, Mike Pence dominated the conversation on Twitter. He had 60 percent of the conversation, the company told Mashable, and gained 22,000 followers. Kaine, by contrast, commandeered 40 percent and gained 15,000 followers.

The top topics on Twitter during the session were Putin, nuclear weapons and "that Mexican thing."

Facebook told Mashablethat the top five issues on its platform were (in order): taxes; Russia & Ukraine; Iraq, Syria and ISIS; the economy; and healthcare. Pence took 54 percent of the conversation to Kaine's 46 percent.

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