CBS Poll: More Uncommitted Voters Saw Biden As Winner

By: Brian Montopoli
Topics: Debates

UPDATED CBS News and Knowledge Networks have conducted a nationally representative poll of 473 uncommitted voters to get their immediate reaction to tonight's vice presidential debate.

After the first presidential debate, a similar survey showed that more uncommitted voters identified Barack Obama as the winner

Final numbers from tonight's poll have yet to come in, but we do have some early results. (These numbers may change as more respondents complete the survey.) They suggest that once again more voters have responded favorably to the Democratic candidate.

Forty-six percent of the uncommitted voters surveyed say Democrat Joe Biden won the debate, compared to 21 percent for Republican Sarah Palin. Thirty-three percent said it was a tie.

Eighteen percent of previously uncommitted percent say they are now committed to the Obama-Biden ticket. Ten percent say they are now committed to McCain-Palin. Seventy-one percent are still uncommitted.

Both candidates improved their overall image tonight. Fifty-three percent of those surveyed say they now have a better impression of Biden. Five percent say they have a worse opinion of the Delaware senator, while 42 percent say they debate did not change their opinion.

Fifty-five percent say they now have a better opinion of Palin. Fourteen percent say they have a worse opinion, while 30 percent say their opinion hasn't changed.

After the debate, 66 percent see Palin as knowledgeable about important issues – up from 43 percent before the debate. But Biden still has the advantage on this – 98 percent saw him as knowledgeable after the debate. That figure was 79 percent before the debate.

Uncommitted voters' views of Palin's preparedness for the job of vice president also improved as a result of her debate performance - but they are still nowhere near the percentage that thinks Biden is prepared.

Fifty-five percent say Palin is prepared for the job, up from 39 percent before the debate. Ninty-seven percent say Biden is prepared, up from 81 percent pre-debate.

Although Palin made some gains on the question of whether she could serve as president if needed, she rose just 9 points on that measure. Now 44 percent say the Alaska governor could be an effective president. Ninety-one percent said Biden could be effective as president, up from 66 percent before the debate.

We will have a full report on the poll later on. Uncommitted voters are those who don't yet know who they will vote for, or who have chosen a candidate but may still change their minds.

Update: Click here for the complete poll data and analysis.

Brian Montopoli
Brian Montopoli is the senior political reporter at CBSNews.com.
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by lucca2004 October 4, 2008 3:41 AM EDT: How could anyone think that Sarah Palin won the debate when she never actually answered any of the questions????

All her cutesy little words, folksy lingo and eye winks did nothing to help the debate either.

She never explained what her and McCain''s plans were for Iraq, the economy, health insurance, social security etc.

Joe Biden won this debate hands down! He was knowledgable, informative and fully explained his view on the issues and the plans that he and Obama would implement after winning the election.; Reply to this comment


by catprater October 3, 2008 6:03 PM EDT: Senator Obama does spend more time talking about the issues that matter, Macain and Palin sound like the rehearsed from the same script.; Reply to this comment


by robertc18 October 3, 2008 5:39 PM EDT: I%u2019m not getting this. Her best event, by all accounts since the Convention and she ends up with a net loss compared to Biden on total take-aways of undecideds. I think we are looking at this too closely. We are told if Palin shows up and doesn%u2019t hurl during the debate she wins. She did that, and more. So why so few minds changed.
My conclusion: We are grading on a curve. The rest of America, and most certainly undecideds aren%u2019t. I%u2019m following her every word, from the Gibson interviews to Couric. So I agree that all she has to do is (not do) what she did with them and she looks like a rocket scientist. Average undecideds may be seeing her for the first time. They have no frame of reference and their expectations aren%u2019t as low as mine. They are comparing her head to head with Biden. Perhaps worse, they may have seen or heard about some of the gaffes and this debate just confirmed their impressions because, again, they are not grading on a curve. Either way, an overall win for Palin resulting in a net loss to Biden of not just the debate but undecideds spells very bad news for McCain on Nov. 4.; Reply to this comment


by wombat714 October 3, 2008 5:33 PM EDT: You know, I have stopped trying to understand why people would vote for McCain/Palin. I''ve asked several friends why, and they only give me reasons why they''re not voting for Obama. Nobody knows ANYTHING about McCain''s plans except for Iraq. Seriously, how can anybody think that Palin won the debate, she didn''t answer any questions that were proposed to her. She kept recycling her answers about energy over and over AND she made a (what I thought) disrespectful comment about how Biden''s wife will find her "reward in heaven" for being a teacher. ***? You don''t say that to a man who lost his first wife in a horrible accident. This just makes me sick.; Reply to this comment


by nite_sparrow October 3, 2008 5:15 PM EDT: robert2237 I do not agree with the proposed bail out bill either. I think it needs to be revised and made to benefit those who truly need it, not crooked corporations. However, with regard to Palin, I watched the debate with an open mind being an independent voter myself. Sure she answered ok, just not the questions that she was actually being asked. That''s not a debate. I think Bidden did poorly on some questions as well, but for the majority of the debate he succeeded in deflating all her ficticious claims and silencing her every time.; Reply to this comment


by pineault0566 October 3, 2008 4:35 PM EDT: So I tried to call Katie''s Restaurant on Union Street this morning because I''ll be driving up through the Wilmington area for Thanksgiving and thought I''d drop by for breakfast.

Trouble is the placed closed - during Clinton''s first term!!!

HAHAHAHAHAHAAHAHA

Nice try at being authentic Joe but you''re just another LIAR.; Reply to this comment


by mcghantech October 3, 2008 3:55 PM EDT: Sarah Palin is sort of a family friend. I first met her 20 years ago when she was sharing an office with my mom at the Frontiersman newspaper over 20 years ago.

Misstating or exaggerating your opponents position is just typical politics, dishonest but to be expected. And I was happy to hear her admit that man had a part to play in global warming. I%u2019ve always said that climate change is cyclical, we%u2019re just amplifying the natural effects. But when two minutes later she stated that %u201CAlaska is full of clean, green, natural gas!%u201D I almost choked. Perhaps she forgot to read the Wikipedia before her debate. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Methane but her father is a high school science teacher, and she was the director of energy for the state of Alaska. How could she possibly not know that CO4 is Natural Gas, aka Methane, and that when burned in the presence of oxygen creates Carbon Dioxide and Water? How could she not know that it is no greener than setting an oil well on fire?; Reply to this comment


by luvlondon October 3, 2008 3:34 PM EDT: Of course Biden won. I''ll take organized depth of knowledge, coupled with warm humor and compassion, over hammed-up folksiness and monotonous repetition of canned talking points and glittering generalities any day! Listening to the pundits after the debate carry on rapturously about how well Palin did got me so riled up I was awake half the night. What is WRONG with those people? Have the news and entertainment finally become so firmly enmeshed that substance is now boring and chick-flick cutesiness is what they really crave? Even Rachel Maddow - Rachel Maddow! - agreed with Pat Buchanan that Biden was boring for the first part of the debate.

So what did we have in instant analysis pundit-land? According to them, we had old Joe, stodgily showing off his knowledge and depth of understanding of the issues, while Sarah, why, she was just as cute and perky as an Applebee''s waitress! Sorry, I don''t mean to be elitist. I used to be a waitress myself, I can even be perky, but I definitely don''t belong in the White House!; Reply to this comment


by msalipson October 3, 2008 3:20 PM EDT: I am waiting to see this fact in coverage of last night''s debate: Nobody has mentioned that Sarah Palin still doesn''t know the difference between the Shiites and the Sunnis in Iraq. From the transcript, "We cannot afford to lose against al Qaeda and the Shia extremists who are still there..." [from the CNN transcript online]

In truth, the al Qaeda network led by Osama bin Laden is comprehensively Sunni and subscribes to a form of Sunni Islam known for not tolerating theological deviation. In fact, U.S. officials blame al Qaeda''s former leader in Iraq, the late Abu Musab al Zarqawi, for the surge in sectarian violence between Sunnis and Shiites. I double checked this on Reuters just to make sure I wasn''t making any error.

I''m loathe to harp on the "one heartbeat away" theme, but this lapse among many only emphasizes the fact that she would be an absolute puppet to the scariest of neocons should she be forced by circumstance to serve as president (I shudder). She doesn''t have the faintest idea what she is saying -- she is a complete impostor seeking higher office.; Reply to this comment


by msalipson October 3, 2008 3:06 PM EDT: I am waiting to see this fact in coverage of last night''s debate: Nobody has mentioned that Sarah Palin still doesn''t know the difference between the Shiites and the Sunnis in Iraq. From the transcript, "We cannot afford to lose against al Qaeda and the Shia extremists who are still there..." [from the CNN transcript online]

In truth, the al Qaeda network led by Osama bin Laden is comprehensively Sunni and subscribes to a form of Sunni Islam known for not tolerating theological deviation. In fact, U.S. officials blame al Qaeda''s former leader in Iraq, the late Abu Musab al Zarqawi, for the surge in sectarian violence between Sunnis and Shiites. I double checked this on Reuters just to make sure I wasn''t making any error.

I''m loathe to harp on the "one heartbeat away" theme, but this lapse among many only emphasizes the fact that she would be an absolute puppet to the scariest of neocons should she be forced by circumstance to serve as president (I shudder). She doesn''t have the faintest idea what she is saying -- she is a complete impostor seeking higher office.; Reply to this comment