Obama takes 2nd debate
Compilation and excerpts from The NY Times, Washington Post, CNN
Edge to Obama
By Nate Silver
From The New York Times
Scientific polls conducted after Tuesday night’s presidential debate in New York give a modest edge to President Obama.
A CBS News/Knowledge networks poll of undecided voters who watched the debate found 37 percent giving an advantage to Mr. Obama, 30 percent favoring Mitt Romney and 33 percent calling the debate a tie. That represents a narrower lead for Mr. Obama than Mr. Romney had after the first debate in Denver, when a similar poll gave Mr. Romney a 46-22 edge.
A CNN poll of registered voters who watched the debate — not just undecided voters, as in the CBS News survey — also gave the debate to Mr. Obama by a seven-point margin, 46 percent to 39 percent. Mr. Romney had won by a much larger margin, 67 percent to 25 percent, in CNN’s poll after the first debate.
Mr. Obama may have benefited in the CNN poll from diminished expectations: 73 percent of voters in the poll said he performed better than they expected, against just 10 percent who said he did worse.
Two other polls gave Mr. Obama a somewhat clearer advantage. A Battleground poll of likely voters in swing states who watched the debate had him winning 53-38.
An online poll by Google Consumer Surveys gave Mr. Obama a 48 percent to 31 percent edge among registered voters.
There were also two scientific surveys about the debate conducted among voters in particular states.
A Public Policy Polling survey of Colorado voters who watched the debate found 48 percent declaring Mr. Obama the winner, and 44 percent for Mr. Romney. Mr. Obama’s advantage was clearer in the poll among independent voters, who gave him a 58-36 edge. However, the candidates were roughly tied when Public Policy Polling asked them how the debate swayed their vote, with 37 percent saying the debate made them more likely to vote for Mr. Obama, with 36 percent for Mr. Romney.
Finally, a poll of California voters who watched the debate, conducted by SurveyUSA, found a 56-32 edge for Mr. Obama. It is no surprise that Mr. Obama won a poll of California voters, and the poll showed a tie, 44-44, among independents in California. Still, a similar poll of California voters by SurveyUSA had given an edge to Mr. Romney after the first debate.
How much will the debate move the head-to-head polls between Mr. Romney and Mr. Obama? Actually, the instant-reaction polls may not be very much help in answering that question. The relationship between the quick-reaction polls and their eventual effect on the horse-race polls has historically been very modest, and has sometimes even run in the opposite direction of what the initial polls suggested.
Winners and Losers
By Chris Cillizza
From The Washington Post
Winner
* President Obama: It was a near-certainty that the incumbent would improve on his mystifying bad first debate performance. And, he did. But he also did more than that. After coming out a little too hot — Obama seemed to be on the wrong side of the angry/passionate divide in the first 15 minutes — he moderated his tone to the sober/serious yet forceful persona that he needed in this debate. Debates are about moments — the moments that get replayed again and again in the after-action analysis — and President Obama had three: 1) his line about how his pension wasn’t as big as Romney’s 2) winning, against all odds, the scrap about the Benghazi attack (with an assist from moderator Candy Crowley) and 3) his strong close in which he used Romney’s “47 percent” comments as a cudgel to beat up his rival. Obama’s performance wasn’t flawless and he didn’t score a clean win as Romney did in the first debate. But, he was the better performer this time around.
* The questions: Town hall formats tend to be hit or miss. When regular people get to ask the questions — unedited by that damn mainstream media! — you either get blunt queries that force the candidates to think or banal generalities that don’t. With a few notable exceptions — gas prices, gun control and why are you so misunderstood — the questions on Libya, how we are better off than four years ago and how Romney differed from Bush were pointed and interesting. No, there weren’t enough of them but that was a function of the two candidates talking too much. And, yes, Romney seemed to get the tougher questions overall but complaining about the rules is a loser’s game. (More on that below.)
* Partisans: From the jump, the two candidates were at each others’ throats — almost literally. Democratic partisans will l-o-v-e the fact that Obama called out Romney on his alleged mistruths. Republicans will l-o-v-e that Romney stood toe to toe to Obama, looked him in the eye and insisted he wasn’t getting the job done.
Loser
* Mitt Romney: The Republican nominee absolutely had his moments in this debate. He was excellent when laying out the case for why we aren’t better off than we were four years ago and for why his record as a jobs creator was far superior to President Obama’s. But, as we noted above, these debates are about moments. And Romney thought he had one when it came to what President Obama said on the day after the Libya attacks. But, in trying to catch the incumbent in what he thought was a clear mistake, Romney was hoisted with his own petard by Crowley in what will be the single most memorable (and replayed) interaction of the debate. Yes, we are aware that there is considerable controversy already over whether what Crowley said regarding Obama’s statement was right/accurate but remember that the average viewer simply isn’t going to read everything ever written about the subject to get to the bottom of it. (If you, gentle reader, want to get to the bottom of it, you should read this amazing piece by the Post’s Fact Checker.) They are going to watch the debate and think: “Obama looked strong there, Romney looked like he didn’t have his facts straight.” Allowing Obama to win — or come damn close to it — on what should have been his weak spot in the debate was a miss by Romney. And, he was clearly jarred by how the Libya fight turned out; he didn’t regain his footing for 10 minutes or so afterwards.
* Undecideds: Can you say with a straight face that there was anything in that debate — style or substance — that would convince an undecided voter to get off the fence? Us either. The argumentative tone from both candidates is the sort of stuff undecideds and independents voters don’t like a bit — and affirms for them why politics is broken.
Split decision
From CNN
Give a slight edge to President Barack Obama.
Forty-six percent of voters who watched Tuesday night’s presidential debate said that the president won the showdown, according to a CNN/ORC International nationwide poll conducted right after Tuesday night’s faceoff here at Hofstra University on New York’s Long Island. Thirty-nine percent questioned said Republican nominee Mitt Romney did the better job.
Obama’s seven-point advantage came among a debate audience that was somewhat more Republican than the country as a whole and is within the survey’s sampling error.
The president’s edge on the question of who won the debate appears to be the result of his much better than expected performance and his advantage on likeability. But the poll also indicates that debate watchers said Romney would do a better job on economic issues. And the two candidates were tied on an important measure – whether the showdown would affect how the debate watchers will vote. Nearly half said the debate did not make them more likely to vote for either candidate, with the other half evenly divided between both men.
Tuesday night’s poll only reflects the view of voters who watched the debate, not the views of all Americans. The reactions of all voters across the country to the second presidential debate must wait until polls are conducted in the coming days.
Nearly three quarters of debate watchers felt that Obama performed better than they had expected, with just one in ten saying that the president did worse. Only 37% said that the former Massachusetts governor did a better job in the debate than they had expected, with 28% saying Romney performed worse than they had expected prior to the faceoff, and one in three saying he performed the same as they expected.
According to the survey, Obama had a 47%-41% edge on which candidate was more likeable. But on some key issues, Romney came out on top, including an 18-point lead on the economy.
