Bernie Sandersmay have stumbled when discussing gun control during Tuesday's debate, but online polls and focus groups seem to agree that he is quite far from being the night's so-called loser (that distinction surely goes to the uncomfortable presence of Jim Webb). Though most outlets quickly declared the undeniably experienced Hillary Clinton the unanimous victor, others were left scratching their heads at the notion.
Bernie's team has reportedly raised $2 million since Tuesday's wizard-attended debate, according to the Associated Press. During and immediately after the debate, Bernie was also the most-searched candidate on Google and the most-discussed figure on both Facebook and Twitter. By Alternet's estimates, Bernie absolutely dominated those aforementioned online polls and focus groups by a profoundly large margin:
Sanders won the CNN focus group, the Fusion focus group, and the Fox News focus group; in the latter, he even converted several Hillary supporters. He won the Slate online poll, CNN/Time online poll, 9News Colorado, The Street online poll, Fox5 poll, the conservative Drudge online poll and the liberal Daily Kos online poll. There wasn’t, to this writer's knowledge, a poll he didn’t win by at least an 18-point margin.
While it's worth noting that such polls are most certainly not considered scientific, the divide between actual public opinion and the dominant media narrative is quite clear. At any rate, all this victory talk should have Bernie very much feeling the Bern himself.
