Super Tuesday: If YouTube Picked Candidates, Would Winner Be Trump or Cruz, Clinton or Sanders?
Here’s who comes out on top if YouTube viewers, and not a dozen states, voted for the candidates today
Joan E. Solsman | March 1, 2016 @ 7:40 AM
Last Updated: March 1, 2016 @ 7:43 AM
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Today is Super Tuesday, when the greatest number of states in a single day hold their nominating contests to pick the official party candidates for president.
It gives the campaigners their best single shot to declare their standing in the races, but what if YouTube — and not a dozen states (and one territory) — picked the candidates?
In the last two months, the top five most-watched candidate videos have made some swaps among the Democrats — and kept a dead lock on No. 1 with Donald Trump.
Since the beginning of the year, here are the top YouTube candidate videos by views and total time spent watching:
Donald Trump
Bernie Sanders
Hillary Clinton
Ted Cruz
Marco Rubio
Compare that to the top five most-watched candidates since announcements started last year, and you see Democrat Bernie Sanders has jockeyed out of his second-place standing to Hillary Clinton in recent weeks.
But don’t confuse viewing with approval. Trump has the heaviest watching in a country he’s lashed repeatedly: Mexico. English-speaking Canada and Great Britain are two top nations watching U.S. presidential candidate clips for nearly all the other top candidates.
Super Tuesday: Watch 9 Key YouTube Clips for Trump, Clinton, Sanders and Cruz (Video)
The "Official Donald Trump Jam" spawned a viral hit you can't out of your head -- whether you like it or not. This clip of the "Freedom Girls" performance has more than 5 million views.
Hillary Clinton's official video announcing herself as a candidate for the first time has been watched 4.8 million times.
A tear-jerker montage of American families and workers is the Bernie Sanders campaign's most viewed clip, with 3.2 million views.
When Time picked Trump as its Person of the Year, they posed him with a bald eagle that rearranged Donald's "do" and staked a claim on his aspirin.
Without the name recognition of Clinton or Trump, one of Sanders most popular videos summarizes who he is him and why he's running in two minutes.
Ted Cruz took advantage of the holiday spirit to post a satirical story-time skit that has netted his official YouTube page 1.9 million views.
Get comfortable -- a 51-minute video officially launching Trump's campaign has been watched more than 1.8 million times. (How many people viewed the whole thing is something only YouTube parent Google knows.)
HBO talk host Bill Maher grilled Sanders on what socialism really means
Clinton joined Ellen DeGeneres in New York to talk about sexism, Kanye running for president and her granddaughter's first words.
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On the biggest day in the primary season, catch up on candidates’ key moments, including an eagle messing up Donald Trump’s hair and Hillary Clinton bonding with Ellen DeGeneres
The "Official Donald Trump Jam" spawned a viral hit you can't out of your head -- whether you like it or not. This clip of the "Freedom Girls" performance has more than 5 million views.
