Much has been written about Monday’s presidential debate. Experience shows us that full impact of the debate takes days to assess, and in that time pundits across the country weighed in on everything from the friendliness of Trump and Clinton’s handshake to the number of “fleeting interjections” registered by each candidate. And, of course, countless polls were taken offering every sort of conclusion.
But every poll suffers from one crucial flaw: by registering the most popular opinion, polls fail to reveal the most agreeable choice for the entire group. As you know, UNU’s proprietary Swarm Intelligence reveals this important distinction, and gives unique insight into how groups arrive at their collective opinion. That makes UNU a perfect platform for assessing the debate, and our researchers couldn’t wait to see what the Swarm would have to say about the candidates. So, we assembled a group of 40 or so likely voters, nearly half of whom are registered as all-important Independents.
First, we wanted to know, did each of the candidates demonstrate a Presidential level of knowledge during the debate? Here’s what the Swarm had to say.
As you can see, the Swarm “slightly agreed” that Clinton met the Presidential standard,but was far less impressed with Trump’s performance. Next, our researchers asked the Swarm the same question with regards to the temperament of each candidate.
Once again, the Swarm seemed to give Clinton a “slight” stamp of approval, but “strongly disagreed” with Trump’s famous insistence that he has a “great temperament.” Both Trump and Clinton stressed the importance of temperament during the debate, but only one candidate’s performance met with approval from the Swarm.
While these results might seem to favor Clinton heavily, our research shows that Monday’s debate might not have had that much of an impact at all on the polls, which remain as close as they were heading into the debate. I say this because one of the last questions we asked the Swarm was whether or not the debate changed their opinion of either candidate.
Tellingly, these replays play out almost identically. According to our Swarm, the debate won’t do much of anything to change public perception of either candidate, which seems to reflect the popular wisdom that entrenched voters see what they want to see and hear what they want to hear. That said, the results above combined with the prevalence of Independent voters in our Swarm suggests that those important voters held Clinton to a higher standard than Trump coming into the debate, and they were not disappointed by her performance. And, in contrast, Trump seemed unable to exceed their lowered expectations for his temperament and his knowledge.
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