Astonishing poll figures on debate

The blog Ace of Spades HQ reports:

CBS Poll: Romney Wins 65-34 on Economy;
CNN Poll: Romney Wins 54-40 on Economy,
49-46 on Health Care,
51-44 on Taxes,
59-36 on Deficit,
49-46 on Leadership,
All in Favor of Romney

… as far as “Debate Winner” it’s pretty close with those registered voters. CBS gives it to Obama, among registered voters 37-30. CNN’s registered voters gives it to Obama 46-39.

But on actual issues—the ones that will determine this election—Romney destroyed him.

The blogger has an interesting analysis of why the same people who said Romney won on the most important issues also said that Obama won the debate:

Americans have gotten pretty sophisticated about judging performance, especially after 10 years of American Idol.

We shouldn’t assume that when people answer the question “Who won the debate?” they confuse that question with “Who did you find more persuasive?”

They might actually be offering a sophisticated analysis: “I think this guy won on debate performance points.”

But then ask them “Who actually persuaded you?,” and they might answer a completely different way.

It certainly appears that’s what happened here tonight.

Mark Jaws writes:

Here is another consideration concerning the after-the-debate poll numbers, which indicate Obama won the debate by margins of 46 to 39 (CNN) and 37 to 30 (CBS). If we assume that black voters are 13 to 14 percent of the poll sample population, and that black voters are overwhelmingly going to say Obama won, and that very few of the undecided voter demographic is black, then Romney wins likely voters who are not black by about six to seven percent. And that is where the lion’s share of the undecided voters are.

Andrew B. writes:

Both CNN and CBS noted their debate poll samples were more heavily Republican and had fewer Independents than their national opinion poll samples by about eight points. This is borne out by surveys from Google and Reuters which pegged an Obama win by a margin of 48-31, or about that same eight points higher than the TV poll margins.

It is to be expected that polling more Republicans will find more people who like Romney on the issues, just as doing the same with Democrats would make you think you were surrounded by Obama lovers.

What the polls really tell you is that more Republicans tuned in to watch last night than their share of the general population, and a large percentage of them took away an impression that their man lost even if they preferred his positions.

Looking at the ethnic breakdown of the audience at the event, it would not be surprising that many of Obama’s minority supporters did not bother to watch at home, leading to a more heavily Republican national TV audience. That doesn’t mean those same minority voters will not turn out in droves to vote on November 6. Even in 2008, despite multiple cycles of turnout growth, urban minority turnout was still far lower than white turnout. Republicans have to be aware of the importance of driving their voter turnout much higher than 2004 and 2008, probably on the order of 25 percent, to counteract Obama’s get-out-the-vote effort and give themselves a chance to win. They are going to need to hit something like an 80 percent or higher turnout of registered Republicans.

Posted by Lawrence Auster at October 17, 2012 01:59 PM | Send