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SurveyUSA, who also conducted a poll of Washington State voters after the first Presidential debate, just released their results from last night's Vice Presidential debate:
Immediately following last night’s debate between Republican Sarah Palin and Democrat Joe Biden, SurveyUSA interviewed 1,100 state of Washington adults, of whom 806 watched the debate.Of debate watchers:
42% say Palin was the clear winner.
39% say Biden was the clear winner.
18% say there was no clear winner.Republicans by 6:1 saw Palin as the winner. Democrats by 5:1 saw Biden as the winner. Independents, the most critical and coveted group, broke 5:4 for Palin.
Of debate watchers:
52% say their opinion of Palin went up. 19% say their opinion of Palin went down.
42% say their opinion of Biden went up. 20% say their opinion of Biden went down.Washington state debate watchers say: Palin was more likable. Biden had a better command of the facts. Biden was more ready to assume the office of President, should that become necessary.
The survey's margin of error is +/-3.5%, making the "who won the debate?" results pretty much a wash. Washington voters thought that both VP candidates made their respective tickets stronger, and that either would make a better Vice President than Dick Cheney (not saying much). Compared to other SurveyUSA polls from last night, voters in Florida and California gave the win to Biden, while voters in Ohio also turned in a split decision. Nationally, both the CNN snap poll and the CBS snap poll of uncommitted voters found that Biden won the debate, while Palin won over the Luntz focus group.
The next Presidential debate (town hall format) takes place at 6pm PDT next Tuesday at Belmont University in Nashville, Tennessee, moderated by Tom Brokaw.
Photo care of ABC News.
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Polls are stupid.
Especially stupid polls.
What the hell is wrong with these people in Washington State who are getting polled? McCain and Palin winning the debates? Really? Did they watch the same debates I did?
The number one issue with polls: they only call landlines.
Raise your hand if you have a landline and if you raised your hand for that, do you answer it for telemarketers?
I had a lot of gin last night while watching the debate (wouldn't you?), and I texted my response to NBC's "Who Won" poll.
Results just came back to me:
77% - Biden
23% - Palin.
I also found this on CNN, which was pretty interesting:
http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/09/11/revealed.biden.timeline/
http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/09/10/revealed.palin.timeline/
You've really gotta stop using SurveyUSA poll results as your story leads. WA residents believe McCain and Palin won their respective debates? If you look at the level of support in WA for Obama at fivethirtyeight.com which is a weighted average of multiple polls, the idea that a majority in WA would chalk up debate wins for McCain/Palin seems patently absurd. Clearly SurveyUSA's methodology makes them an outlier.
Hey Wes, you've got to look at FiveThirtyEight a little more closely, as they consistently rank SurveyUSA as one of the most reliable polling firms. That's the only reason why I would consider their results valid in the first place.
To be fair, a day after the debate, SurveyUSA did another poll of Washington state voters, and found that opinion had drifted towards Biden (just barely out of the margin of error). Credit the influence of the pundits--and other polls--for that.