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84% of CNN's Poll "Sample" Watched The Presidential Debate. Only 22% of Americans Watched It On TV.

ReubenSherr

ReubenSherr

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84% of Americans polled in CNN's poll giving Biden 16-point lead over Trump responded that they watched the Presidential Debate last week.

Interesting, because according to Neilsen, 73 million people viewed the debate on television, or 22% of the American public.

www.newsweek.com

Fewer Americans Watched Trump and Biden's Debate Than Hillary's 2016 Debate

Viewership for the first presidential debate dropped nearly 15 percent from 2016 to 2020, but the reason why isn't entirely known.
www.newsweek.com www.newsweek.com


True, many Americans streamed the debate as well, but 62%?

Seems like CNN might not have grabbed an accurate sample, here. The perception that polling may oversample college-educated voters, and undersample working class or rural voters, might have some merit.
 
ReubenSherr said:
84% of Americans polled in CNN's poll giving Biden 16-point lead over Trump responded that they watched the Presidential Debate last week.

Interesting, because according to Neilsen, 73 million people viewed the debate on television, or 22% of the American public.

www.newsweek.com

Fewer Americans Watched Trump and Biden's Debate Than Hillary's 2016 Debate

Viewership for the first presidential debate dropped nearly 15 percent from 2016 to 2020, but the reason why isn't entirely known.
www.newsweek.com www.newsweek.com


True, many Americans streamed the debate as well, but 62%?

Seems like CNN might not have grabbed an accurate sample, here. The perception that polling may oversample college-educated voters, and undersample working class or rural voters, might have some merit.
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The percentage of likely voters who watched the debate is most likely substantially larger than the percentage of American people who watched the debate as a whole. Additionally, there are probably a substantial number of people who streamed the debate as it was going or (like in my case) later on.

What those percentages are is anyone's guess, but more than 22% of people watched the debate and probably substantially more than 22% of likely voters watched the debate.
 
ReubenSherr said:
Wow. A lot of people must have lied.

Sorry, I don’t buy that.
Click to expand...

Or maybe they watched (parts of) it LATER and not in real time?

Also, if someone uses a tv app from their cable company streaming to their TV - a pretty common setup - do you think that gets counted?
 
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Why do you assume 'working class' voters were less likely to view the debate? The number of Republicans and Democrats who reported watching the debate was about the same.
 
Slavister said:
Or maybe they watched (parts of) it LATER and not in real time?
Click to expand...

Yeah, we got through about 5 minutes in real time. A couple of days later I streamed the entire audio while cooking, walking the puppy, etc.
 
TheDoctorWasIn said:
You are welcome to "buy" or "not buy" whatever you choose - and if makes you feel better, well that's the whole point of motivated reasoning.
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If that many people lied about having watched the debate, that invalidates the entire poll. Who knows what else they lied about.

I don’t think there was any lying going on here.
 
ReubenSherr said:
If that many people lied about having watched the debate, that invalidates the entire poll. Who knows what else they lied about.

I don’t think there was any lying going on here.
Click to expand...

No, it doesn't invalidate anything.

But again, you are welcome to the comfort of your motivated reasoning. Believe what you will.
 
ReubenSherr said:
If that many people lied about having watched the debate, that invalidates the entire poll. Who knows what else they lied about.

I don’t think there was any lying going on here.
Click to expand...

You haven't even come close to demonstrating a single person "lied" in that poll. It's a poll of registered and likely voters. Of course those who are registered and likely to vote are FAR more likely to have watched the debate than people who haven't even registered to vote and are therefore completely disengaged from politics.

And you say, "if that many people lied" then "I don't think there was any lying going on" so which is it?

You also claimed that 73 million was 22% of the American public - true, if you include everyone, including newborn babies, toddlers, children and others who cannot vote, etc. but the relevant stat is percentage of registered voters, or at least those eligible to vote. In 2016 about 130 million cast a vote for president. 73 million who watched in a way captured by Nielsen is 56% of that total, and many millions more would have watched it online, or later, like I did, not captured by Nielsen. Etc........

So your OP is in bad faith from the jump. Of course it is. Your role here is to advance the MAGA cause with every post, which means bad faith is part of the job.
 
ReubenSherr said:
Because many have to work long hours.
Click to expand...

OK, so no basis. The debate was at 9pm. Not many working at that hour, and pretty much everyone with a phone or computer could watch it whenever they wanted, even if they worked an 8p to 8a shift that night. Just go online and find one of dozens of outlets that had the entire debate recorded and viewable at any time. I listened to an audio of the entire debate.
 
JasperL said:
You haven't even come close to demonstrating a single person "lied" in that poll. It's a poll of registered and likely voters. Of course those who are registered and likely to vote are FAR more likely to have watched the debate than people who haven't even registered to vote and are therefore completely disengaged from politics.

And you say, "if that many people lied" then "I don't think there was any lying going on" so which is it?

You also claimed that 73 million was 22% of the American public - true, if you include everyone, including newborn babies, toddlers, children and others who cannot vote, etc. but the relevant stat is percentage of registered voters, or at least those eligible to vote. In 2016 about 130 million cast a vote for president. 73 million who watched in a way captured by Nielsen is 56% of that total, and many millions more would have watched it online, or later, like I did, not captured by Nielsen. Etc........

So your OP is in bad faith from the jump. Of course it is. Your role here is to advance the MAGA cause with every post, which means bad faith is part of the job.
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This is an incredibly long rant, Jasper.

The numbers in the OP speak for themselves.

Neither swing state polling nor approval numbers matches the narrative that Biden is blowing Trump out of the water.

We have new polls showing Trump up or tied in Ohio, a tie in Florida, a tie in North Carolina, slight improvement for Trump in Pennsylvania, and Biden a single point ahead in Arizona.

The new Harris poll has Trump’s approval at 46%.
 
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