Media-Driven Instant Polling in the 2012 General Election:

Who Won the First Presidential Debate?

Sarah Dutton, Director of Surveys

CBS News

March 2013

What Viewers Saw at 10:54:33 P.M.

CBS News and GfK/Knowledge Panel Partnership

• Representative online sample

• Working together since 2000

• Instant reaction polls after debates,

State of the Union speeches

• An expected part of CBS coverage

• Provides a competitive edge

• Claim to fame:

HBO movie “Game Change”

For the 2012 Election

• 4 instant polls conducted in 19 days: – all 3 presidential debates – 1 vice presidential debate

• Among voters who are uncommitted • N = around 500• Results delivered on website, phone

backup• Need to accurately represent debate

watchers

Pre-Debate PollRecruit participants for post-debate poll

– Agree to watch debate– Log in as soon as debate ends– Offered points as incentive– Representative sample of debate watchers

• Collect data to establish pre-debate benchmarks for editorial use

• Demographics of debate watchers, allows us to check for response bias in post debate poll

When the Debate Ends…

• Open up lines, respondents log in

• Post-debate survey about 8-10 questions

• Pre- and Post-debate data is processed and posted on web site

• CBS, GfK check for potential response bias by party, prepared to weight to party ID if necessary (it has not been)

Behind the Scenes….Craziness!

• At CBS, talk with producer and correspondent based on partial data

• Decide what questions to use on air• Intermittent data dumps• “Will it be ready, will it be ready, will it be ready?”• Stop taking in interviews when we have at least

500• Final data is inserted into pre-made graphics

Entire Process: Less than 30 Minutes

• 9:00 – 10:30 First debate• 10:35 129 interviews in system,

335 in progress• 10:40 494 interviews in system,

98 in progress• 10:45 570 interviews• HALT at n = 500• 10:54 Anthony Mason on the air

10.6 million viewers

Party Identification for Recruits and Debate Watchers Similar

Recruits Watchers

Republican 18% 18%

Democrat 23 22

Independent/other 59 61

Male 45% 44.5%

Female 55 55

White non-Hispanic 71% 71%

Hispanic 13 14

Black non-Hispanic 9 7

Other Demographics

Recruits Watchers

Married 59% 64%

18-29 15% 10%

30-44 30 31

45-64 39 40

65+ 16 19