The Fox News/Google Republican debate airs tonight at 9pm EST, and the questions the candidates will be answering come directly from YouTubers.
The debate is also being live-streamed on the Fox News YouTube channel, and according to YouTube’s official blog on Monday, they’ve received about 16,000 questions in total. 792 of those questions were done in video-form.
YouTube has taken the time to break down the questions by category and candidate. Not surprisingly, most questions dealt with government spending, the national debt, and the flailing economy.
Rick Perry received the most questions — a few more than 500 in total — Ron Paul and Mitt Romney recieved the second and third most questions. The candidate who took the dubious honor of having the least questions submitted is Rick Santorum, narrowly beaten by Newt Gringrich.
The most popular question, according to the Fox News YouTube channel, was one which dealt with immigration:
“With so many people waiting years if not decades to enter this country legally, why do we give illegals so many benefits, like free health care, schooling, and in-state-tution while denying these things to American citizens and legal residents?” wrote John from Bronx, New York.
Other popular questions included:
“On 10/8/10, IBM offered the President, at no charge, their services to uncover $900 billion in waste and fraud in Medicare. President Obama turned them down. How would you have reacted?”
– Wayne Stephanoff, from Iron Springs, Prescott
“In the last debate a young man asked the question, “of every dollar that I earn, how much do you think that I deserve to keep?” That question was never answered. Can any of you directly answer that question?”
– Craig Avery, Holmesville, Beatrice