Jim Gilmore Finally Shows Up on a Debate Stage Again and Twitter Goes Nuts

For one hour on Twitter Thursday night, people stopped fretting about Donald Trump dropping out of the debate and began chatting about Jim Gilmore dropping in.

Gilmore, in case you forgot, is still running for the Republican nomination. Though he had not appeared in a Republican debate since the first one last August. He has been polling so low that RealClearPolitics doesn’t even list him in their poll averages. And yet he never dropped out — and one recent national poll gave him the boost he needed to earn himself a podium at Thursday night’s early debate. To his credit, the former Virginia governor still doggedly maintains that he should be the next president of the United States.

The unexpected return of the former Virginia governor to the GOP race catapulted his name to the list of trending topics on Twitter. The resurrection of Gilmore was received with enthusiasm, charmed exasperation, sincere praise, and several Gilmore Girls jokes. Here’s just a sampling.

aw gilmore.

— Hadas Gold (@Hadas_Gold) January 29, 2016

“Jim Gilmore, the voters of Stars Hollow are concerned about the decline in coffee quality at Luke’s Diner.Can you make Luke’s great again?”

— John Podhoretz (@jpodhoretz) January 29, 2016

Jim Gilmore is actually running on a dare from a neighbor. He wins 50 bucks + the neighbor’s kid shovels his snow for a whole week.

— FilmLadd (@FilmLadd) January 29, 2016

“Did you skip me?” Gilmore asks #GOPDebate moderator No, we just forgot you were back pic.twitter.com/1L72YK7aaP

— NowThis (@nowthisnews) January 29, 2016

The BuzzFeed office just went up in applause for @gov_gilmore

— andrew kaczynski (@BuzzFeedAndrew) January 29, 2016

Q for Jim Gilmore at #GOPDebate: If you were the nominee, would you start actually campaigning at that point?

— Leah Libresco (@LeahLibresco) January 29, 2016

Meet Jim Gilmore, the Howard Hughes of this race: https://t.co/foTc7bJB8J #GOPDebate

— FiveThirtyEight (@FiveThirtyEight) January 28, 2016

Jim Gilmore just used the phrase “when I become president of the United States” non-ironically.

— Sahil Kapur (@sahilkapur) January 29, 2016

“Did you miss me? Did you skip me?–Gilmore, who has been more present at #GOPDebate than at any other time in the campaign.

— Cathleen Decker (@cathleendecker) January 29, 2016

Hard to imagine a better example of the entitlement mentality than Jim Gilmore complaining he’s not getting enough airtime.

— Michael Grunwald (@MikeGrunwald) January 29, 2016

Unhappy Gilmore is a little confused on the debate rules. #GOPDebate

— Kennedy (@KennedyNation) January 29, 2016

everybody watching the undercard debate simultaneously googling “where did Jim Gilmore come from” https://t.co/qh4tO9cnxf

— Filipa Ioannou (@obioannoukenobi) January 29, 2016

.@Gov_Gilmore points out to debate moderators that he still exists #GOPDebate https://t.co/TlL5xG2WcG pic.twitter.com/JeJzDy5tzd

— Guardian US (@GuardianUS) January 29, 2016

Fox’s undercard #GOPDebate may be #JimGilmore’s finest hour https://t.co/MhYeIPE1qc pic.twitter.com/ZxFLf9Kq7Y

— Talking Points Memo (@TPM) January 29, 2016

Jim Gilmore has never been more popular than potato. https://t.co/OKfZTs37oq pic.twitter.com/PMUxQgBMBZ

— Christopher Ingraham (@_cingraham) January 29, 2016

Gilmore at this very moment is now the second most searched candidate, according to Google

— Manu Raju (@mkraju) January 29, 2016

I have never heard of Jim Gilmore

— Asieh Namdar (@asiehnamdar) January 29, 2016