The Thursday Slatest: Bernie Won the Online Polls, and Hillary Won the Dang Debate

[boston bean]

On Tuesday night, Josh Voorhees wrote that Hillary Clinton won the first Democratic presidential debate. A number of Bernie Sanders supporters subsequently wrote to Josh to inform him that he was a stupid man with a stupid face and that Bernie, as confirmed by a number of online polls, was the obvious winner. Last night, the Voorhees struck back, informing those Sanders supporters that it was in fact their faces that were the stupid ones, that online polls are a bad way of deciding who did the best in a debate, and that by the way, HILLARY WON* (*from his subjective perspective).

http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_slatest/2015/10/15/the_thursday_slatest_newsletter.html

Yes, Bernie Won Every Poll on the Internet. Hillary Still Won the Debate.

It didn’t take long for the dissenting opinions to come pouring into my inbox. Several were nuanced and well reasoned; others … less so. “Hey dumbass,” began the first, “You should be ashamed of yourself you hack!!!” The next was only slightly more measured with its criticism: “How much money were you paid … you either got big bucks to do this article or you have an intellectual issue,” it read. “Are you blind or just bought? Grow a pair and admit the truth,” read another. One industrious reader, meanwhile, sent eight different emails, most of which included graphic photos and all of which came with the prose that matched the tenor of the distinctly un-PC subject line they shared. I could go on, but you get the point.

http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_slatest/2015/10/14/bernie_won_polls_not_the_debate_hillary_won_the_debate.html

tsk tsk tsk... read the whole thing. very reasoned response to the allegations.

[cascadiance]

1. According to pundits "she won", not any scientific measure..

And if you think pundits are less biased than internet polls, I have a bridge to sell you in Arizona!

History is repeating itself when she was said to "win" debates against Obama, and ultimately lost the election.

[boston bean]

4. I thought Hillary won by a lot, and I'm not a pundit.

I agree with them.

And to think that internet polls are at all accurate, is really a pretty astonishing thought. They mean NOTHING.

[cascadiance]

5. And corporatist paid for pundits and your opinions don't mean any more than internet polls either!

If they meant anything, why didn't Hillary get elected in 2008 the way they predicted then?

These are all OPINIONS and many of those opinions bought and paid for by money that feels threatened by populist movements like Bernie's.

[global1]

2. I Happen To Think That Subjective Perspectives Are A Bad Way Of Deciding Who Did Best In The...

debate.

I guess I would trust more the collective opinions of many people that responded to online polls versus the subjective opinion of one person.

Here's the choice:

n = many online polls pointing to the same conclusion - versus - n = one person's subjective opinion.

[That Guy 888]

3. The whole thing was an interesting read

They also tend to favor those candidates with active and impassioned fans—something that Bernie’s fundraising numbers and campaign crowds suggest he clearly has in spades. When Slate and a number of other established media outlets declared Hillary the winner, we gave that same fan base—which has long felt, not unjustifiably, that their man’s not getting a fair shake in the media—one more reason to reload the page and vote again. In online polls, like elections, it’s all about turnout. In online polls, unlike elections, you can vote as many times as you want.

Which brings us to what I saw on Tuesday: As I wrote then and still believe now, Hillary was confident, poised, and unexpectedly aggressive. That, I concede, is a subjective opinion—as is any that calls a “winner” in a contest where there is no agreed-on metric to actually score the participants. But it’s also an informed one. She entered the night up nearly 20 points on Sanders when pollsters included Joe Biden in the race, and by even more when they didn’t. In other words, she didn’t need to win converts, only to preach to her choir—and from where I was sitting, she did just that. If absolutely nothing else, her email scandal was effectively eliminated as a primary issue thanks to Bernie’s benevolence—a massive pickup given the topic has been by far Clinton’s single biggest vulnerability this year.

As far as spamming the polls with multiple votes, it would depend on the poll and it would depend on how tech savvy the respondents are. Not all online polls allow you to simply reload and vote again, I would be very surprised if Slate.com's poll allowed that easy a cheat.