US Google searches about moving to New Zealand skyrocket during Presidential debate

US Google searches about moving to New Zealand skyrocketed during Donald Trump and Joe Biden's shambolic debate.

At 2pm on Wednesday, the Republican President and his Democratic opponent went head-to-head in their first live debate. 

The debate swiftly fell apart with Trump talking over host Chris Wallace and blaming COVID-19 on China while Biden said the President "wasn't smart" and pleaded with him to "shut up".

By 2:20pm Google Trends was mapping a rise in interest in the search"how to move to New Zealand".

Google Trends provides a snapshot of what topics or items people are looking for on the Google search engine and how they compare.

Searches are ranked from 0 (not enough data) to 100 (peak popularity).

The search spiking.
The search spiking. Photo credit: Google Trends

When the debate began at 2pm there was not enough data to show a trend. But 20 minutes later, the search had crept up to 23 out of 100.

Just before 3pm, an hour into the debate the search was at 75 out of 100 

By 3:30pm, the search had reached 100 - the top of the scale.

Google Trends also maps where the search was most popular. People in Oregon, a democratic state, were most interested in the search. 

Washington, Nevada and Utah were all sitting between 89 and 91 in terms of interest.

Related searches which also gained interest were "can I move to New Zealand", "move to New Zealand from US" and "moving to New Zealand".