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Early Post-Debate Polls Suggest Obama Won

September 26th, 2008
By ELYAS BAKHTIARI

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There are already some numbers coming in measuring perceptions about who “won” tonight’s presidential debate. To start, CBS News polled 500 uncommitted voters and found:

  • 40% thought Obama won, 22% thought McCain won, and the rest thought it was a draw
  • 46% said their opinion of Obama got better tonight
  • 68% think Obama would make the right decisions about the economy, compared to 42% for John McCain
  • 55% think McCain would make the right decisions about Iraq, compared to 49% for Obama

MediaCurves held a focus group, and while Democrats and Republicans broke along party lines, independents gave the edge to Obama on every segment:

  • 61% of independents said Obama won, compared to 39% for McCain (”tie” wasn’t given as an option)

  • Independents rated the segment on Russia as Obama’s best, giving him the edge 66.7% to 33.3%
  • Independents rated the segment on government spending as Obama’s worst, giving him the edge over McCain 53.4% to 46.6%

Granted, the final effect of the debate on the polls may be very different from this initial snapshot. However, it appears Obama reached the audience he needed to: independents and undecided voters. What do you think?



This entry was posted on Friday, September 26th, 2008 at 11:39 pm and is filed under Debates, Newsweek Blogitics, John McCain, Barack Obama, 2008 Elections, Polls, Politics. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

Viewing 8 Comments

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    Yeah, I was kindof giggling listening to the media talking heads predict who "won" and who "lost". I knew the stunt of trying to duck out of the debate would hurt McCain no matter how good he did. I loved the little move Obama did at the very end at the handshake of patting McCain on the shoulder and patronizingly telling him, "you did a good job", like a parent reassuring a timid child..

    Ouchies....lol...

    The public didn't like McCain's transparent chicken attempt to ditch the debate. The polls are going to show a significant bump for Obama that will gain momentum each day the economy stands stagnant from GOP waffling on not wanting to help Mainstreet out as much as dems are pushing for....and rightly they should..

    It's the only way we will rebuild: from the foundation up this time..

    No gravy for gamblers.
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    This is copied from another comment trail, but it's my best guess for what happened.

    There's also the question of what people who don't follow politics like TMV readers learned. For us, almost everything Obama said is old news. But for people who don't follow, they may have gotten a far more nuanced version of Obama than they previously had. This might explain why the polling (possibly) supports an Obama win while for us it seemed fairly even.
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    I thought McCain was more passionate and knowledgeable-- Obama was cooler, calmer and more collegial. Neither one scored a knock-out but neither hurt themselves with any obvious flubs. I doubt it will change too many minds. What I'm looking forward to is the aftermath of Biden-Palin.
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    I've been seeing a lot of references to that Media Curves website, but I've never heard of them before, so I don't how credible they are.
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    On the gimmicky MediaCurves thing, I found the independent reactions most interesting. When McCain was speaking, the little red line of Republican supporters predictably went up, and when Obama was speaking, the little blue line rose. No surprises there. I paid more attention to the green-independent line, which vacillated between the red and blue on most occasions...but trended with the blue-Democrat line more often than the red-Republican line.

    My off-the-cuff reaction -- for the partisans watching the debate, nothing changed. McCain supporters remain McCain supporters, and Obama supporters remain Obama supporters. But for that small sliver of undecided independent voters...this debate may have helped swing them slightly in favor of Obama. Just a little bit, but a little bit is all that is needed.

    For me personally, I viewed the debate largely as a draw - Obama and McCain both did reasonably well, and had their strong and weak points. If this was a boxing match I would probably edge Obama the win on points, but I could easily see if someone else gave McCain the slight win as well. A draw.

    But then again, I decided in favor of Obama a long time ago, so it's not like this debate was aimed at someone like me. So, how I viewed whether "Obama won" or "McCain won" is, well, irrelevant.

    For the undecided on-the-fence voter, they may have a totally different perspective. And since I feel that voter block is ultimately going to decide this election, it is their opinion that matters most. From the MediaCurves thing, it looks like Obama may have scored well tonight.
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    pacatrue, they ought to poll political geeks like us and those who don't follow it closely, and see how far apart the divide is. It'd be interesting. In the end, though, it's those undecideds who don't follow too closely who will pick the the next president.

    Also, color my cynical, but CNN's sample seems far too small to be held as reliable. The general rule of thumb is more people = more reliable. That's why the most cited polls are usually above 1000 respondents.
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    I watched the debate on NBC and at some point afterwards I saw the CBS poll numbers.

    Then I switched to FOX and 82% of their viewers who voted afterwards via text messaging thought McCain won. I think 16% thought Obama won (in the interests of transparency I texted into Fox my choice of Obama). The remainder considered it a draw.

    Then I switched to CNN and watched the rerun a little bit. CNN had an ongoing audience poll counter (whatever they're called, I'm embarrassed I can't recall off the top of my head). And it seemed that Dems were for Obama and Reps were for McCain. The party line held true even on issues I thought the other party would have liked about the other guy's candidate (either I don't understand what's important to the "other side" or the vote was strictly partisan.

    As far as independents.... they didn't show as much enthusiasm as either the Dems or the Reps did for their candidates. But it seemed to me that the independents were more or less equal towards Obama and McCain.

    I'm left with the impression that there wasn't a clear winner nor loser. Though I personally feel Obama did much better than McCain.
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    On a somewhat related note, if anyone hasn't been to Pollster ( http://www.pollster.com/polls/us/08-us-pres-ge-...) , go over there to see the updated interactive map. A click or mouse movemeny allows you to follow their consensus poll over time.
 
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Initial Reflections on the First Obama-McCain Debate »


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