After an almost insurmountable level of anticipation, the first debate between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump seemed to live up to the hype. The most watched debate of all-time, potential voters tuning in were treated to more barbs and interruptions than they were policy discussions. That being said, voters don’t necessarily choose their candidate based on policy positions learned in a debate - which is doubly true this cycle.
Post-debate, the attention and speculation now shifts towards the polls: how will the candidate’s performances change their outlook? Some early polls seem to indicate a small shift in Clinton’s favor, and an analysis of Trendency data backs up this assertion.
As a bit of background, Trendency Research is an online analytic platform where we convene panels of likely voters who log in regularly and answer questions on politics, current events, and other topics. Trendency looks at voter opinion on a continuum and not as a binary choice. Instead of choosing one candidate they support, Trendency surveys allow respondents to allocate their support on a sliding scale among candidates. This allows for an in-depth examination of support at various levels, which we term “Threshold Analysis.”
Voters for a candidate who are at higher Threshold are stronger in their convictions and less likely to shift to another person, while those at lower Thresholds divide their support among more candidates and more easily shift their allegiance. This can also be thought of in terms of volatility: those at higher Thresholds show less volatility, while those at lower Thresholds show much more volatility in their level of support.
For this piece, we are not looking at the horse race per se, but more so at voters’ reactions to the debate and how it may or may not have shifted their thinking about the race. We asked Trendency panelists who they think performed best on the debate stage Monday night: in the Average Threshold Analysis, 62% think Clinton performed best, as compared to 31% who said Trump did.
These numbers are in line with other public polling that was released the night of the debate. But Trendency data also shows that Clinton’s victory was stronger than just the topline numbers might indicate. At the 90 Threshold, support levels increase for Clinton to 72%. In essence, this means that likely voters who watched the debate and had strong opinions about the outcome shifted dramatically in Clinton’s favor. It’s not until lower Thresholds that Trump’s support rises to 40% and Clinton’s drops to 60%. Very few Trendency panelists who watched thought Trump did outstanding, which was quite the opposite with Clinton.
Trendency is currently conducting research in 10 swing states and it is instructive to compare the debate reaction among the various areas. Below is a chart of the Average Threshold Analysis in each state:
It is hard to distinguish an exact pattern when comparing state to state; however, it’s not necessarily a surprise that Clinton performed best in Virginia among these 10 states, which is perhaps her safest state at the moment. Among Trendency users, Clinton also performed above the average in vital states like Florida and Ohio, which is certainly promising news for her campaign. At the same time, voters in Nevada, Pennsylvania, and Colorado were well below the average across all states. That being said, she still outperformed Trump everywhere, even if the margins were slightly smaller in some places.
Now does this mean that we will see any movement in Clinton’s direction in the public polling? Donald Trump has defied convention before, but the Trendency data seems to indicate that he won’t be so lucky this time. In addition to asking about their overall debate performances, Trendency panelists told us whether this debate shifted their potential vote at all.
On the Average Threshold Analysis, 84% said the debate would make no change in who they plan to vote for. 7% indicated that they have shifted their vote towards Clinton and 3% towards Trump. In a Presidential election, these small shifts are not unexpected. Nonetheless, any movement is important in a tight race and it is clear that Clinton has a small advantage post-debate.
Based on this data, Hillary Clinton won the first debate over Donald Trump, and we should expect a 3-5 point bump in the polls for Clinton in the coming days. Whether that advantage is sustainable is a question for another time, but this debate clearly favored Clinton over Trump.
By Stefan Hankin, Lincoln Park Strategies