• by Laurie Sullivan , Staff Writer @lauriesullivan, August 5, 2015

Gawker distributed Donald Trump's voicemail number -- and the U.S. Republican presidential candidate turned the message into a marketing opportunity for his campaign. That likely only gave "The Donald" a boost because he was already beginning to lead in searches on Google.com across the United States since early July. 

With the Republican GOP presidential debate this week, people want to know "Who is Donald Trump?"

A breakdown of top-searched Republican candidates on Google by country shows the American real estate mogul and businessman dominates in the category across every state in the country except Vermont, where Senator Bernie Sanders leads. The red in the map indicates searches for Trump, followed by Republican presidential candidate and former Florida Governor Jeb Bush in green.

The topic of immigration leads for the most-searched election 2016 policy, with same-sex marriage, education, economy, and taxes rounding out the top five.

The data, aggregated from June 1, 2015 to now, shows Hillary Clinton as the most searched-for candidate in many of the cities across the United States in the six months before the July 4, 2015 holiday weekend -- but not in all. Trump and Bush both had their share.

During the last full week in July, the top-asked questions about Donald Trump were "How old is Donald Trump?" "What is Donald Trump's net worth?" "Who is Donald Trump?" Is Donald Trump running for president?" "Will Donald Trump be president?"

No doubt Donald Trump will take center stage at the first Republican presidential debate Thursday night, but many will watch to find out whether his policies will float up into thinner air and dissipate like puff of smoke or have substantial weight to hold the country strong in the future.

New York Times political reporter Trip Gabriel calls Trump "waffling, flip-flopping" and full of "inconsistencies," some of which seem "improvisational."

One thing is certain -- Trump knows how to self-market in real-time. Did you catch the antics when he gave out Sen. Lindsey Graham's real cell phone number? In exchange a few weeks later, Gawker thought it only fair that the U.S. voters should have access to Trump's phone number, so the media agency published it. "In the spirit of open and fair political debate, we now bring you Trump’s number," Sam Biddle at Gawker wrote.

Trump (and likely his marketing committee) responded by transforming his voice message into an ad for his presidential campaign.