Over 80 million people tuned in on September 26 as Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton went head to head in their first presidential debate. Big-time live events such as the Super Bowl or the NBA Finals tend to cause some fluctuation in Pornhub’s traffic, and the presidential debate was no exception.
Pornhub sees dip in traffic during debate. (Photo credit: Shutterstock)
In the hours leading up to the debate, the porn site’s traffic dropped below average, before taking a steep dive right at 9pm when the debate began. Pornhub traffic fell “as much as 16 percent compared to an average Monday,” during the hours of the debate. By the time the debate ended though, traffic recovered to typical “Monday night levels,” according to the site.
New Hampshire, Massachusetts and D.C. saw the steepest drop in traffic, dipping as low as 21 percent below average. Hawaii, Alaska and Mississippi only saw a 4 percent drop from average traffic levels.
Pornhub users in states that voted Democrat in the 2012 election appear to have been more willing to give it up during Monday’s debate, according to the traffic report. The 17 states that took the biggest traffic hit during the Presidential debate all voted Democrat in 2012.
The porn site’s statisticians also discovered a drop in traffic from the United State’s neighboring countries. Canada’s pornhub traffic dropped down to 8 percent below average and Mexico saw a 7 percent drop during the election’s first debate.
If Pornhub users are voting in accordance with their state, it would appear that Hillary supporters were more willing to give up a couple hours of browsing to tune in on Monday.