Commentary blogger Noah Pollak looks at the discrepancy between CNN's headlines and their polling numbers. while the headline says "Obama wins," the numbers, after controlling for the proportion of Democrats to Republicans who tuned into the debate, say it was a tie. Though the topline number -- 51- 38 Obama -- looks bad for McCain, reading down in the story we find that most of that is due to the greater numbers of Democrats who watched the debate in the first place -- 41-27.
Now to be fair, causality might go in a different direction. People might be more inclined to identify themselves as Democrats after having watched a debate where the Democrat, in their opinion, won. Moreover, there has been a secular increase in the proportion of Democrats compared Republicans in the electorate as a whole underway for some time. Still, CNN seems to, at the very least, have chosen to interpret their data in the way most favorable Obama. This is important: these so-called "spiral of silence" or, as social scientists are not inclined to permit, "social desirability bias," has a tremendous effect on how the electorate as a whole perceives these debates.
Now to be fair, causality might go in a different direction. People might be more inclined to identify themselves as Democrats after having watched a debate where the Democrat, in their opinion, won. Moreover, there has been a secular increase in the proportion of Democrats compared Republicans in the electorate as a whole underway for some time. Still, CNN seems to, at the very least, have chosen to interpret their data in the way most favorable Obama. This is important: these so-called "spiral of silence" or, as social scientists are not inclined to permit, "social desirability bias," has a tremendous effect on how the electorate as a whole perceives these debates.
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