I'm not sure if you can say either of them won the debates. It's pretty gray. MSM said that Hillay won, the internet and online polls said that Bernie won (unsurprisingly), but I think people's personal biases get in the way of who they think won the debates, whether that's their own personal opinion or it's the sites/metrics they use to determine who won.

Regardless, the debate scheduling was an absolute joke. The DNC did their best to schedule as few debates as possible and during times when other highly-watched events were taking place. Of course, none of this should actually surprise people anymore given the corruption exposed by the email leak.

Your memory is failing you. Bernie overwhelmingly won public opinion until the media the following day reported. I'm not referencing online polls.



I'm talking polling and focus groups directly after the debate. As far as the public was concerned Bernie killed in the debates, at least until the public was exposed to mainstream media, and the trend also held up that the more media they consumed post-debate the more their decision was swayed to Hillary. Groups that only watched media coverage and not the debates overwhelmingly favored Hillary, while groups that only watched the debates almost always favored Bernie.

This post was edited by Thor123422 on Aug 18 2016 10:55pm

The system is rigged. Trump is right.

He is right about that.

President Trump is right about a lot of things tbqfh

I'm actively trying to find any story that gives Clinton the majority of focus groups for any debate. So far unsuccessful.

I didn't follow every debate, but every debate I did follow had Bernie winning by a landslide until the media on the debate came out the next day. Still, looking for one that shows Hillary the winner of any particular debate before media coverage. Mostly getting the October debate because Luntz's focus group dominated the media, and other stories that just say "Bernie won the majority of focus groups". Hard to find specific details.

You're probably right. I'm just trying to remain unbiased. I thought Bernie performed well in the debates, but I thought the DNC debates were more substantive and the two didn't actually go after each other that much, so that can make it harder to determine who "won."

I think Bernie's ideas are better, so of course when I hear them both say their thoughts on an issue, I thought Bernie "won" most times, but that's introducing a lot of personal bias. As to who actually articulated their platform better and won more direct exchanges, I'm not sure.

Maybe. Personally speaking, I found that Sanders had a pretty solid stump speech, but his proposals were rather vapid.

Also, going back to your point about the debate scheduling. The timing was undoubtedly poor, but they still got killer ratings compared to the GOP 2012 debates.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democratic_Party_presidential_debates_and_forums,_2016#Ratings
http://www.adweek.com/tvnewser/final-2012-gop-primary-debate-ranker-abc-nbc-on-top-fox-news-1-on-cable/114398

He accomplished quite a bit though in getting Hillary and the rest of the Democrats to adopt certain proposals so he wasn't a complete failure. Hell, he even got people to cry for him on national television.

I don't think you can really compare the 2012 GOP debates with the 2016 Democratic debates as metric for whether the 2016 Democratic debates were at optimal time slots.

Debate viewership is almost always going to be lower in years where there is a presidential incumbent running.

I'm not saying they were optimal. It's pretty clear that they were suboptimal. My point is that it didn't really matter since they got a shit ton of viewers.