A record number of people were tweeting about the Presidential Debate last night

Over 22,000 people tweeted about the Presidential Debate on RTÉ Prime Time last night – a new record number of tweets.

Social Media Live, in partnership with Olytico, captured the data from over 6,000 Twitter accounts last night between 8 pm and midnight. They also analysed the data to see which candidates were mentioned the most. Current President Michael D. Higgins came out on top, being mentioned in 27% of the tweets.

The second most mentioned candidate was Peter Casey, with almost 3,000 mentions. Casey has received considerable coverage over the past week of his campaign, due to his controversial comments on Travellers and the short suspension of his campaign last weekend.

The Prime Time debate is the last debate in which all the candidates will take part before the official vote on Friday.

Related: Everything you need to know before the Presidential Election on Friday

According to polls, President Higgins is holding his lead position and looks set to easily win the election. The most recent poll by Red C and the Sunday Business Post, surveyed 1000 voters and found that 68% would vote for Higgins. Next is Sean Gallagher with 12%, followed by Liadh Ní Ríada with 9%.

Related: Presidential election: the latest opinion poll shows how each candidate ranks

Commenting on last night’s debate, Stephen O’Leary, CEO of Olytico and Social Media Live speaker, found that; “the final debate generated the highest level of engagement on Twitter, with over 22,000 tweets published last evening about the RTE Prime Time broadcast. While he may not have been the most vocal candidate during the debate, President Michael D Higgins was the most mentioned – featuring in over 27% of all tweets – more than double the volume generated by any other candidate”.

Featured image: RTÉ Prime Time