HEMPSTEAD, N.Y., Sept. 27 (UPI) — In the wake of Monday’s fiery first presidential debate, a CNN poll shows a majority of those watching thought Hillary Clinton was the victor over Donald Trump.
In the CNN/ORC flash poll, conducted immediately after the debate, 62 percent of those who watched said Clinton won. Just 27 percent said Trump won.
CNN pointed out the pool of respondents in the flash poll hewed more Democratic than the sample size in a normal poll, partly because the network noted the demographics of those watching — up to 100 million viewers, according to some pre-debate experts — would be more favorable to Clinton.
CNN said the flash poll over-sampled Democrats and under-sampled Republicans by a net 15 percentage points, when compared to the percentages of respondents in its regular national poll.
Still, even among independents, Clinton was rated the winner, though by a smaller margin: 54 percent to 33 percent.
Public Policy Polling, a Democratic polling firm, also found Clinton the winner, 51 percent to 40 percent in a post-debate flash poll. Clinton performed even better among two voting blocs she will need to win in November: women and young people. In both demographics, a higher percentage than the overall group thought she won.
Fifty-four percent of women and 63 percent of young voters said she was the winner. Among younger voters, 47 percent said the debate made them more likely to vote for Clinton.
The CNN/ORC poll interviewed 521 individuals in the immediate aftermath of the debate. Those people were pulled from a random sample of respondents in another poll of the race completed Sept. 23-25, after they said they planned to watch the debate and agreed to be interviewed again after it was over. The survey’s margin of error is 4.5 percentage points.
The PPP poll surveyed 1,002 people who’d been pre-screened who’d said they would watch the debate and answer questions afterward. Eighty percent responded by landline telephone; 20 percent who did not have landline phones responded via the Internet. The survey’s margin of error was 3.1 percentage points.
