LAS VEGAS, Oct. 20 (UPI) — Post-debate polls showed Hillary Clinton defeated Donald Trump in Wednesday night’s final presidential debate, including in traditionally key battleground states.
A CNN/ORC poll released Thursday shows Clinton won the final presidential debate by a 13 percent margin over Trump.
The CNN/ORC poll, which has a 4 percent margin of error, asked 547 registered voters their thoughts after watching Wednesday’s debate. Overall, 52 percent of people polled said Clinton performed better than Trump, followed by 39 percent who said Trump did best.
On the issues, those polled thought Clinton would be better at handling the economy, the federal budget and foreign policy. Trump bested Clinton on the issues of immigration and on the topic of nominations to the Supreme Court.
Clinton beat Trump 59 to 35 percent on the question of who was better prepared to handle the presidency.
Though Clinton won in the debate overall in performance, 54 percent of people polled said the debate did not change their mind on who they would vote for. Those whose opinion was swayed by the debate were split between Trump and Clinton by 23 percent and 22 percent, respectively.
In CNN/ORC polling, Clinton won the first debate by 62 percent over Trump’s 27 percent, though this poll was criticized for oversampling Democrats, polling 41 percent Democrats compared to 26 percent Republicans and 33 percent independents. The CNN/ORC poll also showed Clinton won the second debate — 57 percent to Trump’s 34 percent.
“This is a poll of debate watchers, that’s key — [it] skews slightly more Democratic here but actually it’s our most evenly divided audience of any debates so far this season,” CNN’s political director David Chalian said of the third post-debate poll.
Another national poll conducted by YouGov gave Clinton the win as 49 percent to 39 percent of people said she was victorious over Trump. The YouGov poll, which has a 3.6 percent margin of error and sampled 1,503 debate watchers, was also skewed Democrat, which made up 37 percent of those polled compared to 30 percent of Republicans and 27 percent of independents.
In the CBS News 2016 Battleground Tracker — which tracks likely voters in 13 states identified as battlegrounds by CBS News — all of those polled said Clinton won the debate over Trump by 49 percent to 39 percent, respectively. Twelve percent of people called it a tie.
CBS News said 35 percent of people who responded to the poll identified as Democrats, while 28 percent said they identified as Republicans and 35 percent identified as Independents.
The CBS News poll, which has a 3.8 percent margin of error, was conducted on 943 registered voters in Arizona, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Iowa, Michigan, New Hampshire, Nevada, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Virginia, and Wisconsin.
