The Second Debate

Debates Legacy blog posts

A busy weekend has made me late to the party on the subject of debate reaction. For those who have not seen them, three survey organizations — Gallup, ABC News and Democracy Corps (a Democratic polling entity) — did post debate surveys of debate watchers. Each one polled debate viewers they had previously interviewed earlier in the week, Gallup and ABC by telephone and Democracy Corps via a projectable and representative Internet panel (the merits of which, I discussed here).

Gallup described the debate reaction as “a standoff”and ABC News said debate viewers “divided along partisan lines,” because the results in both surveys showed that partisans on either side judged their man the winner by nearly identical margins (or at least within sampling error). Vote preferences barely budged during the debate. Historically, that is the typical reaction — the debate itself tends to reinforce existing preferences.

However, most of the coverage has overlooked the fact that independents perceived Kerry as the winner on all three surveys:

  • Gallup – “Who do you think did a better job in the debate?” Kerry 53%, Bush 37%
  • ABC News – “Who, in your opinion, won the debate?” Kerry 44%, Bush 34%
  • Democracy Corps – “Who would you say won the debate?” Kerry 44%, Bush 33%

The ABC polling unit looked at their own results and noted (in a press release) that the 10-point Kerry margin among independents was “within the margin of error for the number of independents surveyed.” True enough. Given that ABC reported a “35-32 percent Democrat-Republican division” in their survey, independents could have been no more than 170 respondents out of 515, for which the margin of error would be at least +/- 7%.

However, the three surveys combined included more than enough interviews among independents to make a 10-point difference significant.* All of this may be fleeting, but for those who actually watched the debate Friday night, Andrew Sullivan’s conclusion that “Bush rallied his base, but Kerry won over the middle,” seems well supported by the data.

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*I know, I know. Question wording and sample frames were slightly different, so from a statistical purist’s perspective, lumping these three subgroups together is not strictly kosher. However, the methodological differences in this case seem trivial, and the nearly identical results from all three surveys gives me confidence that they are real. The total number of idependents sampled fell somewhere between 450 and 700, depending on how Democracy Corps defined its independent subgoup.

Mark Blumenthal

Mark Blumenthal is political pollster with deep and varied experience across survey research, campaigns, and media. The original "Mystery Pollster" and co-creator of Pollster.com, he explains complex concepts to a multitude of audiences and how data informs politics and decision-making. A researcher and consultant who crafts effective questions and identifies innovative solutions to deliver results. An award winning political journalist who brings insights and crafts compelling narratives from chaotic data.