The first debate between President Donald Trump and Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden Tuesday evening led to a spike in Google searches about how Americans could move to Canada , The Independent reported.
According to data from Google, “how to apply for Canadian citizenship,” “move to Canada,” and other similar queries surged following the fiery 90-minute exchange between the two presidential candidates.
The queries were particularly popular among internet users in the states of Michigan, Massachusetts, Washington, Ohio, and Illinois.
In 2016, when Trump beat then-Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton, many citizens of the United States dismayed by the results of the election vowed to flee to Canada. According to Canada’s CTV News , thousands have done so.
In fact, data shows there was a noticeable increase in Americans trying to relocate to Canada following Trump’s victory.
In 2015, around 6,800 American citizens tried to apply for permanent residency in Canada. A little over 7,700 did the same in 2016. After Trump’s inauguration, the figure surged to 9,000.
According to Andrew Carvajal, a Canadian immigration lawyer, his firm received “four times” more calls than normal from Americans seeking to relocate up north following Trump’s victory.
“They would basically make comments, ‘I’m really concerned about what’s going to happen now,’ and a lot of the people just, it was just obvious from that, what they were saying,” Carvajal explained.
He also noted that there was an uptick in members of the LGBTQ community exploring a move to Canada.
The Trump-Biden debate was widely panned as chaotic since the two candidates spoke over one another, traded insults, and made a number of false and misleading statements.
Moderator Chris Wallace of Fox News struggled to keep control of the event, failing to rein in the two men as they took jabs at one another.
Per The Inquisitr , CNN host Dana Bash described the event as a “sh*t show,” while her colleague Jake Tapper labeled it as a “hot mess inside a dumpster fire, inside a train wreck.”
Biden repeatedly accused Trump of mishandling the federal government’s response to the coronavirus pandemic. The president hit back with personal insults, launching attacks on the Democrat’s son Hunter Biden.
According to The Independent , Christopher Devine, an expert on presidential campaigns at the University of Dayton in Ohio, said the debate was a complete failure and likely did not persuade voters “one way or the other.”
Still, polling suggests Biden won. For instance, in a CBS survey, 48 percent of respondents said the Democrat won, while 41 percent said the commander in chief emerged victoriously.