Following the first presidential debate on June 26th, Tulsi Gabbard was the most searched candidate on Google. She was, at that time, a credible Democratic Party candidate. Almost immediately after, her Google Ads account was suspended without warning. This resulted in a lawsuit alleging that Google used its influence to “silence” Gabbard, who missed out on campaign donations as a result. Prior to the third debate on September 12, the Democratic National Committee (DNC) sent a memo to all the campaigns saying they had changed their debate qualification process. This memo set a deadline of August 28th to reach 130,000
