Wednesday, September 28, 2016

The First Presedential Debate of the 2016 Election - Who Won?

After the first Presedential debate of the electoral season, most national news outlets view Hillary Clinton as the overwhelming winner in their post-debate polls. However, other news outlets used Internet polls and found the complete opposite results. Who do you think won the debate? Why?

24 comments:

  1. I thought that this article was a pretty good representation of the American media; most of the news sites are either politically biased and inclined to support a particular party or more focused on attention than accuracy, leading to the skewing of results in order to gain attention. To me Hillary was the clear winner of the debate, and the more reliable media outlets seem to be recognizing that.

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  2. This article effectively addresses the discontinuity in polls. Different styles of polling from various sources will yield different answers like what we read in this article. However, the well-known reliable sources all seem to say that Hillary was the winner. I absolutely think she won; she handled herself in a very professional manner, didn't let Trump's stupidity phase her, and hit a lot of her points regarding policies. When you compare the two side-by-side it's clear that one has a presidential composure and the other is far from possesing it.

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  3. Trump is constantly citing online polls that show him as the victor, but they are not a true representation of the population like scientific polls. Trump's supporters, in various professional polls, are shown to be much more enthusiastic him than Hillary's supporters are about her. Thus, these online, unscientific polls are answered largely by Trump's own supporters rather than the general public. They shouldn't be taken seriously at all. Hillary clearly had a better understanding of the issues in the debate and Trump just made up stuff or gave vague responses.

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  4. The media is overwhelmingly biased and the fact that Trump won the Fox News poll and Clinton won the CNN poll shows this. Fox is a notoriously right-wing news source and so the people responding to its poll are more likely to be Republicans, whereas the same is true with CNN in terms of their being left-leaning. I think that Clinton was the obvious winner of the debate. She spoke about specific policy and her qualifications while Trump's focus, as usual, was on trying to make Clinton look bad by interrupting her, bringing up irrelevant information, and acting like a child.

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  5. Many of these polls are not representative of the population of the United States, and they even warn viewers of their inaccuracy. In voluntary polls, only people with the strongest feelings will take the time to answer; most, if not all, online polls are voluntary. Trump's overwhelming support in online polls only goes to show that his supporters are very passionate, not that a majority of the population of the United States thinks he won the debate. I would be very surprised if this were the case, given his question dodging and lack of professionalism during the debate.

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  6. Personally, I don't value poll results that highly because of the significant variation and obvious bias present in situations like this. Different media outlets target specific audiences, distorting their representations of the news. In my opinion, Secretary Clinton clearly won the debate but might not benefit that much. Her performance was what people would describe as "classic Hillary." This probably won't win over many undecided voters. However, as someone who is not particularly fond of either candidate, I was disgusted by Mr. Trump's blatant lies. He consistently contradicted himself and argued with the moderator, which is honestly disgraceful. His toxic deception proves that he is no better than the career politicians that he has denounced.

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  7. The inconsistency between all the different polls alone shows how inaccurate at least some of them are. Internet polls especially cannot accurately show the views of the American people because they only include the opinions of the people voluntarily going to those websites and answering questions. So it makes sense that more conservative news sources are saying Trump won and more liberal sites are declaring Clinton the winner. I believe that Clinton was far and away the winner of the debate. Overall though I don't think many people's opinions were changed at all due to the debate. I'm sure most Trump supporters walked away thinking he won the debates and would have thought so pretty much regardless of what he said.

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  8. This article successfully shows that Media is biased. In the article in mentions how the poll on FOX news claimed that Trump one, while CNN claimed that Hilary one. This shows that these polls are inaccurate because each media source has a certain viewer, whether they are conservative or liberal, and that a viewer voted on his preferred media source. I think that Clinton was clearly the winner in this debate. Even though Trump kept interrupting her, she kept he composure and remained calm.

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  9. These types of polls are not a very good indicator of what the American general public feels like. It just shows the opinions of people who frequent a particular website, who follow politics and/or who have very strong opinions. The numbers of people that these polls use are also very low to show how all Americans feel about the candidates. Polls like this are extremely unreliable for these reasons. Personally, I do feel as though Secretary Clinton won the debate because she was much more professional than Mr. Trump and was able to keep her composure for the most part while I couldn't say the same about him.

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  10. Regarding the polls, it is apparent that the media is biased. As well, the news wants to attract viewers, so the data could be skewed as well in certain circumstances. In general though, so many people in this country have different views on politics and who they think should be the president of the country. I, for one, thought that Hillary did a phenomenal job at the first presidential debate due to her thought-out responses and ability to stay professional. On the other hand, I know that there are some people who would totally disagree with me and believe that Trump was the obvious winner. So yes, I do believe that in most polls presented in the media, it is biased and it doesn't make sense that all the statistics are so different. On the other hand though, due to the different varieties of political views in this country, I don't know what to expect anymore.

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  11. I believe Hillary won the first debate by a landslide. Trump lost his composure and professionalism pretty quick in the debate. His sniffling, interrupting, and lack of detail to his answers were EXTREMELY annoying and unappealing to viewers. Hillary on the other hand kept calm and addressed Trumps insults to her very professionally. For example when Hillary was explaining all the possibly reasons Trump refuses to release his tax returns she spoke to the audience in a way that was easy to understand and calm enough to make it seem as truthful as it probably is. In the next debate Trump would definitely have to prepare himself much more to gain supporters he may have lost from the first debate

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  12. Of course, this question isn't straightforward and depends on who you ask. On the grounds of explaining their policy, I believe Clinton handily won the first debate. I believe Hillary also won when it came to displaying professionalism and preparedness. Still, if you ask others, they may tell you that Trump's spontaneous nature made him a good debater. When we leave the heavily biased online polls and examine large-scale scientific polls, it's evident that Clinton who the first debate by a large margin. Due to her clearly better knowledge of policy and its implementation, I believe Clinton won the first debate with a very strong performance.

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  13. I think Clinton clearly won the debate. She was very collected, usual. Furthermore, she kept her composure when Trump encited her. Trump very obviously lacked substance and was extremely nyopic. I think that many internet polls also have response bias, and I think the bias of CNN and Fox News is pretty obvious too (although that of the latter is more extreme).

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  14. I think that Clinton was the obvious winner of the debate. Everything from her policy to her composure was much stronger than Trump's and it was very evident. Trump tended to get very off topic and most times didn't actually answer the question. Even when Trump insulted her, Hillary kept her composure and showed what a strong candidate she really was. These polls go to show how biased the media can actually be.

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  15. It is interesting just how different polls can be. It just goes to show how easily data can be manipulated and used in our world. I personally think that it is obvious Clinton won debate. Regardless of what you think of her politics, she was much more informed and coherent than Trump was. I have to wonder how much the debate affects general populations views on the political candidates.

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  16. I found this actually very interesting as when I watched the debate, I was chatting with both Hillary supporters and Trump Supports alike. They both seemed to be convinced that their candidate was winning the debate. Trump supported admired him for the very reason they supported him in first place: His quick speech and his ad hominem attacks. Hillary supporters liked her for her immense knowledge of her detailed policy and her ability to call upon it so quickly. So, to me as an anarchist I wasn't swayed either way, but to the average voter, it seemed that the debate didn't really have much effect on their choice, they were mostly preset on their preference.

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  17. I believe it was quite obvious that Hillary won the first presidential debate. I believe this because aside from Trump, Hillary addressed and answered the questions that were asked for the most part. She spoke about policy and seemed to focus more on the issues at hand. She also kept her composure after being interrupted and bashed on by Trump. Trumps, like usual, did all he could to make Hillary look bad and brought up unrelatable topics; just overall difficult to listen to. The Media, as mentioned in the article, I believe is very bias. Fox News had Trump winning the debate, and CNN had Hillary winning.. It's obvious which side each news source swings for.

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  18. I believe that Hillary Clinton won the first presidential debate. Hillary was consistently more composed and calm than Trump, and had detailed ideas and plans. Trump somehow managed to evade many questions and not answer things the audience wanted him to. For example, he repeatedly stated that our businesses are "leaving the United States for other countries" and that it must stop. However, when asked about his actual plan for this, he found a way to not give a concrete answer. Hillary came prepared and was more representative of a responsible and well-tempered leader than Trump.

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  19. I was insanely surprised to hear that people actually thought that Donald Trump won the debate. Clinton was the obvious winner over Trump, showing a strong sense of leadership and talking very well about her ideas and plans that she had if she took office. Hillary actually gave details about her ideas, while Trump found many ways to give a very bland answer. It really wasn't even a question who won this debate.

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  20. I would assume that there is bias in the people who are creating these polls. I would also assume that they manipulate the data (ie call people who they know will support a specific candidate before polling them). In the first debate Clinton was much more calm, reasonable, and generally displayed more presidential behavior than Trump. I don't really see how someone could find Trump's interruptions appropriate but I'm sure that there are registered Republicans you can poll that will say he did a better job.

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  21. It was clear to me that Hillary Clinton was the winner of the debate; she kept calm, acted much more mature than Trump, and generally had better arguments. The internet polls showing Trump's victory were very biased, since no random sample was taken and people were just able to vote whenever they wanted to. Trump supporters have an extremely strong online presence, and they easily could have manipulated the results, since the poll conducted was not a true statistical study.

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  22. I think Hillary Clinton is the clear winner of the debate as she presented knowledge and experience, while giving legitimate answers to the questions. Trump on the other hand, wasn't being specific with his answers and it seemed like he focused more on trashing Hillary than actually defending his own policies. Also, I don't find the polls to be a reliable source because they are heavily biased.

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  23. It should be known that Trump has a relatively large group of supporters that are very active online, and are much more willing to participate in voluntary polls as a result of their enthusiasm. In statistics, this form of open polling that allows anyone at anytime to vote is susceptible to voluntary response bias, which skews the results based upon those who are most willing to display their opinions. I'm not sure what form of polling that various news stations would use, but if they performed a poll where they targeted people to vote instead of juts allowing anyone to participate, they could get a more representative group out of a crowd as long as they made sure to try and maintain a balanced sample. Therefore, I would say that it is safe to say the Clinton would have the lead in these polls, due to the fact that the polls that support her are less influenced by external bias. Personally, I think that Hillary would be the winner of the debate, based merely upon her stance and responses. She has looked much more rehearsed and in control than Trump has. Trump might be good at intimidating through his stance, but in a debate, that is clearly unprofessional, and he showed nothing to make me believe that he won the debate.

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