Polls Give Obama Debate Victory
The numbers are in from Friday’s debate, and it looks like good news for Team Obama:
By 46%-34%, those who watched said Obama did a better job than McCain. Obama led McCain, 52%-35%, when they were asked which candidate offered the best proposals for change to solve the country’s problems.
…
The debate had a positive impact for Obama on handling the economy; 34% said they had more confidence in him to fix economic problems after seeing the debate, while 26% said they had less. For McCain, 37% reported having less confidence and 23% said they had more.
CNN:
Fifty-one percent of those polled thought Obama did the better job in Friday night’s debate, while 38 percent said John McCain did better.
Men were nearly evenly split between the two candidates, with 46 percent giving the win to McCain and 43 percent to Obama. But women voters tended to give Obama higher marks, with 59 percent calling him the night’s winner, while just 31 percent said McCain won.
“It can be reasonably concluded, especially after accounting for the slight Democratic bias in the survey, that we witnessed a tie in Mississippi tonight,” CNN Senior Political Researcher Alan Silverleib said. “But given the direction of the campaign over the last couple of weeks, a tie translates to a win for Obama.”
…
National security has been an issue where McCain has held an advantage, but his edge over Obama — 49 percent to 45 percent — on the question of which candidate would best handle terrorism is within the poll’s 4.5 percent margin of error.The economy, which has been Obama’s terrain this cycle, dominated the first half of the debate. Debate watchers gave him a 21 percentage point edge — 58 to 37 percent — on the question of which candidate would do a better job handling the economy.
By a similar margin, those polled said Obama would be better able to deal with the current financial crisis facing the nation.
CBS:
Thirty-nine percent of uncommitted voters who watched the debate tonight thought Barack Obama was the winner. Twenty-four percent thought John McCain won. Thirty-seven percent saw it as a draw.
Forty-six percent of uncommitted voters said their opinion of Obama got better tonight. Thirty-two percent said their opinion of McCain got better.
Sixty-six percent of uncommitted voters think Obama would make the right decisions about the economy. Forty-two percent think McCain would.
Forty-eight percent of these voters think Obama would make the right decisions about Iraq. Fifty-six percent think McCain would.
MediaCurves: Independents preferred Obama’s responses to every question asked during the debate. 61% of Independents polled through Obama won the debate, compared to 38% for McCain.
Also, for those of you who were a little disappointed with the number of times Obama said “John is right,” Virginia Del. Kris Amundson (D-44) has some food for thought:
Fess up. On Friday night, you wanted Our Guy to strike back. You wondered why he didn’t say, “As a matter of fact, John, I dounderstand.” You wanted him to smack somebody upside the head.
Or maybe that was just me.
But as the polls have come in and I’ve had a chance to look at the internals, I was the one who was smacked upside the head with this realization: These folks know what they’re doing.
For a lot of us (on both sides) the election is already over. The Twelve Apostles could come canvassing at my door for John McCain and I wouldn’t change my vote. So in that debate, Barack Obama didn’t have to talk to me.
He did need to talk to the undecided voters. Who loved the fact that he wasn’t mean. Who loved it when he said he agreed with his opponent. Who want a President, in other words, who acts Presidential.
RSS Feed
Comments on this post closed 14 days after it was posted.