Hillary Clinton’s debate performance may have inflicted a knockout blow | | | | | |
| | | | | Hillary Clinton’s debate performance may have inflicted a knockout blow Undecided and third-party voters overwhelmingly thought Hillary Clinton won the first presidential debate | | | | Daily chart Hillary Clinton’s debate performance may have inflicted a knockout blow Oct 5th 2016, 15:07 BY THE DATA TEAM COMPARED with the Punch and Judy show that preceded it, the vice-presidential debate on October 4th between Mike Pence and Tim Kaine was a stale affair. But the bruises inflicted from the first debate between Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton on September 26th are yet to heal. An estimated 84m people tuned in across America, making it the most-watched political debate ever*. Mr Trump declared himself the victor immediately afterwards, even though he was still complaining about a “really bad” microphone five days later. Mrs Clinton was far less “braggadocious”, to use one of Mr Trump’s turns of phrase, but her allies were just as quick to proclaim that she won. It is hardly surprising that the candidates and their surrogates evaluated the performances through rose-coloured glasses. Even among members of the public not affiliated with either campaign, opinions on the debaters’ answers varied sharply based on political preconceptions: in a YouGov poll conducted on behalf of The Economiston October 1st and 2nd, an overwhelming majority of Mrs Clinton's supporters thought their candidate had landed the most blows, while a majority of Donald's Trump's thought he won, or at least drew level (see left-hand chart). However, 17% of respondents to the poll did not come in cheering for one side or the other: instead, they say they will either vote for Gary Johnson, the Libertarian, Jill Stein of the Green Party or are still making up their minds. Given how firmly supporters of the two major parties tend to hold their beliefs, it is these viewers whom the candidates had the best chance of convincing, and who should be the best arbiters of victory. Their verdict was decisive: 40% said Mrs Clinton won, against a paltry 3.5% for Mr Trump.Despite this apparent romp for the Democrat, just a handful of respondents to the survey said the debate actually made them change their mind about how they will vote. And when asked whether it might at least adjust their likelihood of supporting either candidate, Mrs Clinton’s or Mr Trump’s supporters remained fiercely loyal (see right-hand chart). But 18% of third-party and undecided voters did say that they are now more likely to support Mrs Clinton because of the debate, against just 4% for Mr Trump. If Mrs Clinton manages to convert this 18% into ballots in her favour, it would amount to a 2.7 percentage-point increase in her national support.Sure enough Mrs Clinton has increased her national polling lead from around two percentage points before the debate to about four now. There is some debate about why this might be and whether it will last—the leading cause may well be the propensity of enthusiastic Democrats to pick up the phone when pollsters call, rather than a sweeping change in support. But with just 34 days to go before the election, Mr Trump is running out of time to prove that Mrs Clinton hasn’t already dealt him a knockout blow.*After controlling for population, either the 1960 debate between John F. Kennedy and Richard Nixon (which some estimate attracted an audience of 64m), or perhaps the 1980 debate between Ronald Reagan and Jimmy Carter (with an audience of 80m), are perhaps most deserving of the epithet of “most-watched”.
