U.S. presidential candidate Donald Trump's declaration of love for "the poorly educated" in his Nevada victory speech lit up social media on Wednesday, sparking a battle between those dumbfounded by the remark and those saying it had been taken out of context.

After winning the vote of the state's Republicans by a wide margin on Tuesday, the real estate billionaire rattled off a list of those groups who swept him to victory: "We won with young. We won with old. We won with highly educated. We won with poorly educated. I love the poorly educated."

By Wednesday morning, the phrase "I LOVE THE POORLY EDUCATED" was trending heavily. On Twitter, it was tweeted roughly 15 times a minute, according to social media analytics firm Zoomph.