RICHMOND, Va. -- As Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton made their final pitches to American voters during the third presidential debate Wednesday, Virginia voters were most curious about topics like Roe v. Wade and voter registration, according to search engine analysts.
"The top issue searched in Virginia was abortion; number two was voter registration, and nationally that was number one. That's followed by the national debt of the United States, immigration and ISIS," said Daniel Sieberg who studies Google search trends.
While the Clinton and Trump campaigns have squabbled over who came out on top Wednesday night, Sieberg said one candidate clearly won in Google in Virginia. When it comes to search interest, Virginians googled Donald Trump 72% of the time compared to 28% for Hillary Clinton.
"Of course people search for these candidates for a variety of reasons. It may or may not be because you agree with what they say. We leave that up to the pundits and analysts to break that down, but that's what we saw during the debate," said Sieberg.
In an average of polls by Real Clear Politics, Clinton is leading Trump both nationally and in Virginia with less than three weeks to Election Day. Both campaigns have dogged scandal and controversy through the entire elections cycle, and Virginians were curious about establishing context for what they heard on stage Wednesday, Sieberg said.
"With Hillary Clinton we saw queries related to what is Roe v. Wade? What happened at the Clinton Foundation? What emails did Hillary Clinton delete?" said Sieberg. " With Donald Trump, we saw questions related to his support of the invasion of Iraq. What did Justice Ginsberg say about him? Is 'bigly' a word?"
While many voters have already made up their mind on who they vote for and Google searches can only tell you so much about how voters are really feeling, Sieberg thinks it is clear voters nationwide plan on participating on election day.
"We saw during the final few minutes of the debate a 330% spike in searches for early voting," he said. "People want to have their voice heard; they want to be part of the process."