A new InsiderAdvantage/Newsmax Debate Poll conducted minutes after Wednesday’s debate ended reports that most Americans say GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney won the first debate by a 7.4-point margin over President Barack Obama.
Asked to pick a winner on the night, 52 percent of the respondents chose Romney and 44.6 percent chose Obama.
Pollster Matt Towery says "the results largely followed party lines, but independents broke in favor of Romney, moving the dial in his favor."
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Unlike traditional polls that rely on outbound calls, the InsiderAdvantage/Newsmax Debate Poll is based on a pool of several thousand randomly selected registered voters from around the United States who agreed in advance to call an 800 number in the first 20 minutes following the debate with their choice for the winner.
“You basically get the same randomness as if you were calling the households,” explained InsiderAdvantage head Towery, who noted that pollsters are prohibited from calling upon American families after 9 p.m. in any time zone — a restriction that effectively precludes traditional polls from being taken after an event such as Wednesday’s first presidential debate which wrapped up at around 10:32 p.m. Eastern. The debate started at 9 p.m.
The flash poll included responses from more than 372 registered voters, which was higher than expected and resulted in a margin of error of plus or minus 5.2 percent, according to Towery.
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“That’s normally what we get on a flash poll. A plus or minus 6 would have been more than enough to be a valid poll in something like this,” he explained.
“The only non-random part is those who decide to call in and don’t’ call in, but we have a big enough pool so that that doesn’t really matter because we weight it down from Democrats, Republicans, independents or whatever,” he said.
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