According to results of the latest Monmouth University national poll released, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton improved her standing among registered voters by six points after the first Democratic debate.
Clinton: 48% (up from 42% last month) Sanders: 21% (up from 20% last month) Biden: 17% (down from 22% last month) Webb: 1% O’Malley: less than 1% Chaffee: less than 1%
57% of Biden supporters say they would throw their vote to Clinton if Biden doesn’t run.
24% of Biden’s supporters would switch to Sanders.
If Biden were to enter the race, Clinton would still lead by double-digits, Sanders could drop to the #3 spot:
Clinton: 42% Biden: 27% Sanders: 20%
“The specter of a Biden candidacy still hangs over this race, but Clinton can take comfort that she has appeared to win back some support with a solid debate performance,” said Patrick Murray, the director of the Monmouth University Polling Institute.
The Monmouth University poll of 340 registered voters was conducted between Oct. 15 and Oct. 18 and has a 5.3 percentage point margin of error.
Or is it really Bernie Sanders as Larry David? Hmm?
Clip description: Hillary Clinton (Kate McKinnon), Bernie Sanders (Larry David), Jim Webb (Alec Baldwin), Lincoln Chafee (Kyle Mooney) and Martin O’Malley (Taran Killam) face off at the Democratic presidential debate, hosted by CNN’s Anderson Cooper (Jon Rudnitsky).
Clearly, her strong performance at this week’s Democratic debate made a good impression on New Hampshire voters as she has regained the lead in the Granite State.
The results of the new survey show Hillary at 37% and Sanders at 35%. That’s within the error of margin, but a clear improvement over past weeks.
Regarding the debate specifically, among the 283 polled who watched the two hour event, 54% said Clinton was the winner; 24% chose Sanders.
New Hampshire Democrats also pick Clinton as having the best chance to win in the general election next fall – 52% majority favoring Clinton, while only 16% who look to Sanders.
“I’ll be very frank here. It was rigged in terms of who was going to get the time on the floor by the way that Anderson Cooper was selecting people to supposedly respond to someone else. I even turned around to Bernie Sanders at one point and said, ‘Bernie, say my name, will you say my name?’ In that kind of environment it was either going to be Mr. Angry or be a potted plant.
“It’s very difficult to win a debate when you don’t have the opportunity to get to speak in the same amount of time on issues as the others get. It’s the reality that the debate was being portrayed as a showdown between Mrs. Clinton and Bernie. But if you are going to be invited to participate and people are going to judge whether you, quote, won or not, at least you should be able to have the kind of time that’s necessary to discuss issues that you care about and have worked on.”
According to a new HuffPost/YouGov poll, a majority of registered Democratic voters felt former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton won Tuesday night’s Democratic debate.
A 55 percent majority of registered Democratic voters who watched the debate said Clinton won. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), who saw a surge in online interest and fundraising, was a distant second, with only 22 percent saying he was the best of the night.
Clinton also saw an uptick in the proportion of Democrats who say they want her to be the party’s presidential nominee. Before the debate, 44 percent of registered Democrats said they wanted Clinton to be the nominee. After the debate, the figure had risen to 52 percent.
• It’s notable that Hillary Clinton was the only candidate to bring up LGBT issues at all last night (partly because the topic wasn’t introduced by the moderator) and she did so in the first few minutes of the event in her opening statement.
“This is about bringing our country together again. And I will do everything I can to heal the divides — the divides economically, because there’s too much inequality; the racial divides; the continuing discrimination against the LGBT community…”
• Hillary knew when to not interject and possibly become a target of the discussion, and when to use body language to nod her head in agreement when others were talking – it kept her visually present in the moment.
• Hillary was ready with a strong answer when asked about her vote for the Iraq war: “Well, I recall very well being on a debate stage, I think, about 25 times with then-Sen. Obama debating this very issue. After the election he asked me to become Secretary of State. He valued my judgment and I spent a lot of time with him in the Situation Room going over some very difficult issues.”
• Anderson Cooper was a highlight worth mentioning, also. Strong, prepared, not afraid of clear follow-up questions, he held the candidates to the questions and when needed would circle back after a non-answer: “Senator, you didn’t answer the question,” he said more than once.
• One quibble I had was the tone set at the beginning as he chose to start with questions that, basically, called each candidate out on their weak spots. No problem with those questions, but I thought it began the event with everyone on defense. As a viewer I’d have preferred that line of questions had come later.
• CNN made little use of the secondary moderators leaving little input from the female (Dana Bash), the African-American (Don Lemon) and the Latino (Juan Carlos Lopez) and there didn’t seem to be a good reason. Cooper delivered a strong performance, but perhaps he forgot his colleagues sitting on stage?
• While I realize neither former Sen. Jim Webb nor Gov. Lincoln Chaffee will not be the next Democratic nominee for president, the amount of time afforded them (which Webb openly groused about the entire evening) was unfair. I understand everyone can’t have EXACTLY the same time, but the difference in talk time and questions was vast. Check the table below.
• Sanders can lay claim to the most memorable moment of the evening when he chimed in on the subject of Clinton’s email server woes. “Let me say something that may not be politically smart, but the secretary is right: the American people are sick and tired of hearing about your damn e-mails,” Sanders stated. “Thank you, Bernie, thank you,” Clinton said.
I always start to pass over these videos from the Taiwanese Animators, but then I watch and remember how funny and creative these folks are.
Definitely worth watching. What’s amazing is how they turn these vids around so quick. All this “storytelling” is directly from last night’s Democratic debate.
Here’s the text of the narration (which is subtitled on the video):
The first Democratic debate wasn’t quite the bloodbath we had hoped for, but it was pretty darn good. Hillary Clinton stood strong and Bernie Sanders made sure people were “feeling the Bern.”
As for the other guys, Jim Webb spent most of his energy begging for air time, Martin O’Malley faded away with a plan for 2050 and Lincoln Chafee (remember him?) was there too. Most of the questions and attention were directed at party favorite Hillary Clinton and top contender Bernie Sanders. Candidates remained focused on the bigger issues, for the most part.
When Chafee returned to his Republican roots and chided Clinton over her email scandal, Sanders eschewed the opportunity to land a low-blow. Instead, he said he’s sick and tired of hearing about her damn emails. That drew a standing ovation from the crowd. Sanders wasn’t as kind to Clinton regarding her vote for the Iraq war in 2002.
Regarding Syria, Clinton said we need to stand up against Vladimir Putin’s bullying. She also took shots at Sanders’ record on gun control. “It’s time our country stood up to the NRA,” Clinton said.
Sanders stressed the importance of standing up to Wall Street’s “casino capitalism.” He even suggested Wall Street controls Congress, not the other way around.
Anderson Cooper tried passing the legalization dutchie to Clinton, joking that everyone in the room had smoked weed at some point. Clinton refused take a position.
CNN can be happy about the audience last night’s Democratic Debate drew as preliminary estimates show 15.3 million viewers tuned in to watch Hillary, Bernie and company.
That marks the largest TV crowd for a Democratic debate ever. Before last night, the top number was the 2008 Philadelphia debate on ABC with 10.7 viewers.
The RNC will surely point out that the Dems didn’t come close to this years record setting GOP debate that drew over 25 million viewers.
But then, there were no “reality stars” on the stage last night in Las Vegas. Only substantive discussions about what’s best for the country.
Perhaps an indication of the Democratic party representing younger audiences, CNN did point out that the number of viewers who watched via streaming devices (phones, laptops, tablets) reached over 980,000 at it’s peak. That number surpasses the best of any Republican debate which has only topped out at 921,000.
