The insta-polls and focus group results are in, and among undecided voters, it appears that Obama was seen as the winner of tonight’s debate.
For what it’s worth: The Frank Luntz and Stanley Greenberg focus groups went overwhelmingly for Obama. And a CBS poll of undecideds went for Obama 40%-22%.
Here’s the full breakdown of the CBS poll
40% of uncommitted voters who watched the debate tonight thought Barack Obama was the winner. 22% thought John McCain won. 38% saw it as a draw.
68% of these voters think Obama would make the right decision about the economy. 41% think McCain would.
49% of these voters think Obama would make the right decisions about Iraq. 55% think McCain would.
For my own part, I found it a surprisingly sober affair, and it was about as substantive as this format allows it to be, which is a credit to both candidates. Since nobody really made any major mistakes, that makes it a draw in my book. Which means that if you’ve already picked a candidate, you probably think that candidate won. That undecideds broke either for Obama or for a tie, though, can’t make the McCain campaign happy. He really needed a clearer win to break out, and it didn’t happen. Frankly, I’m surprised at that result–I would have thought it would have been a more even split between the candidates.
Update: Here’s video from Frank Luntz’s focus group:
John McCain’s biggest line of the night was about accountability for Wall Street. Obama’s biggest line of the night was pointing out that McCain was wrong about Iraq.
