by George Harris
Kansas City Star
Reader Advisory Panel 2008

Third update (October 8 8 am): AOL viewer voting (unscientific) place Obama winning by a 52% to 41 margin.

MSNBC viewer voting (unscientific) shows Obama winning 83% to 13.

SurveyUSA shows polls from California and Washington. Obama won the debate in California voters' eyes 56% to 26. In Washington Obama wins the poll of those who watched the debate 54% to 29.

I was still unable to find a Fox poll, but the web site has a number of pundit analyses. Many Fox pundits see McCain winning the debate. One pundit gives Obama the victory, crediting style over substance.

Second update: On the CBS web site a poll of 516 people showed Obama winning 40% to McCain's 26% with 34% calling the debate a draw.

First update: MediaCurves in a poll of 1001 people reports that Republicans thought McCain won the debate 68 to 20; Democrats thought Obama won the debate 84 to 10; Independents thought Obama won the debate 52 to 34.

Initial post:

VERY early poll results from CNN show Obama winning the 2nd debate 54 to 30.

CNN also reported that a CBS poll of undecided voters showed an Obama advantage of 39 to McCain's 27, remaining voters unchanged. I have not been able to find this poll on the CBS web site.

Non-random, unscientific polls on MSNBC and AOL show Obama 85 to McCain 12 and Obama 51 to McCain 42. These numbers will change as additional people log onto the MSNBC and AOL web sites/portals.

I will update this post as additional poll data becomes available. Please bookmark this post and check back for the updates.

A quick look at comments on the FOX News web site suggests that their viewers saw McCain winning the debate, but there was no tabulation. It is no surprise that FOX viewers thought McCain won and MSNBC viewers thought Obama won.

It is likely that overall poll results will reflect the overall numerical advantage of Democrats to Republicans in the general population. If Obama and McCain evenly divide the remaining undecided voters, McCain loses the election.

Given the polling available prior to the debate, it is clear that McCain needed a major victory in the second debate to close the gap with Obama. He did not succeed.

McCain's inability to capture undecided voters in tonight's debate with sharp, angry attacks on Obama also suggests that negative advertising in the remaining campaigning time will not be effective...unless he can find some major bombshell. Otherwise, he is likely to be perceived as an unpleasant, surly person with a temperament unlikely to produce bipartisan results in a Democratically controlled Congress.