Can polls tell who won a debate?

Debates FAQ Legacy blog posts

Start with these two posts on how instant polls and focus group aim to evaluate how candidates faired in a debate:

For more commentary, click on this link, or the link for the “debates” category, for a list of short excerpts of all of the posts on polls aimed at measuring reaction to the presidential debates. They will appear in reverse chronological order (most recent first).

Mark Blumenthal

Mark Blumenthal is the principal at MysteryPollster, LLC. With decades of experience in polling using traditional and innovative online methods, he is uniquely positioned to advise survey researchers, progressive organizations and candidates and the public at-large on how to adapt to polling’s ongoing reinvention. He was previously head of election polling at SurveyMonkey, senior polling editor for The Huffington Post, co-founder of Pollster.com and a long-time campaign consultant who conducted and analyzed political polls and focus groups for Democratic party candidates.