1. Sarah Dutton, Director of Surveys CBS News March 2013
Media-Driven Instant Polling in the 2012 General Election: Who Won the First Presidential Debate?
Sarah Dutton, Director of Surveys
CBS News
March 2013

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

3. 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”

4. 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

5. Pre-Debate Poll Recruit 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

6. 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)

7. 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

8. Entire Process: Less than 30 Minutes
9:00 – 10:30 First debate
10: interviews in system, in progress
10: interviews in system, in progress
10: interviews
HALT at n = 500
10:54 Anthony Mason on the air
10.6 million viewers

9. Party Identification for Recruits and Debate Watchers Similar
Recruits Watchers Republican 18% 18% Democrat Independent/other Male 45% 44.5% Female White non-Hispanic 71% 71% Hispanic Black non-Hispanic 9 7

10. Other Demographics Recruits Watchers Married 59% 64% 18-29 15% 10%
% 10%