General

Polls put Romney in No. 1 spot

Republican candidate was seen as the clear winner, say CNN, CBS polls

As soon as the closing arguments were over in the U.S. presidential debate between Barack Obama and Mitt Romney the pollsters began polling, and the results suggest that voters gave the Republican candidate a clear win for his performance.

A CNN poll puts Romney as the big winner, with 67 per cent of people who watched the poll saying that the Republican candidate came out on top. Such a poll result is excellent, says CNN polling director Keating Holland, who is quoted as saying: “No presidential candidate has topped 60 per cent in that question since it was first asked in 1984.”

Meanwhile, CBS News conducted its own polling experiment, asking 500 uncommitted voters “Who won the debate” immediately after it was over. Of those voters, 22 per cent said Obama came out on top, 46 per cent chose Romney and 32 per cent of the undecided voters remained on the fence, saying the debate was a tie. CBS also asked the same group how the debate had changed their opinion of Romney. Again, things looked good for the Republican, with 56 per cent of respondents saying they had a better opinion of Romney, 11 per cent saying their opinion was now worse and  32 per cent reporting no change.

In less scientific polling, a Fox News web poll shows 95.19 per cent of respondents giving Romney the win. Another entirely unscientific Politico web poll has 47 per cent of respondents giving Romney the win, 37 per cent putting Obama on top, 12 per cent saying it was a draw and three per cent undecided.

In Canada, a Globe and Mail web poll shows that 35 per cent of respondents give the victory to Romney, 15 per cent say Obama was the winner and eight per cent say it’s too close to call. Of course, 43 per cent of respondents also say they didn’t watch the debate.

In case you were one of the 43 per cent who missed it, or if you dozed off after the first 30 minutes, the Washington Post has distilled the 90-minute debate to two minutes of highlights for easy catch up.

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