WHAT MATTERS: BERNIE SANDERS IS BECOMING BETTER KNOWN

And the more people who see and hear him, the more they like him and his authentic message.  Yay, Bernie!  A real man of the people!!!

The 'Winner' Of The Debate Doesn't Matter - Here's What Does

October 15, 2015

Akira Watts

As soon as the first Democratic debate ended, on 10/13, the race was on to declare the winner. For columnists and pundits, the answer was obvious: Hillary Clinton. She was "confident and poised," depicted herself as a "progressive who likes to get things done," and came across as the most "competent" candidate on the stage.

On the other hand, social media and online polls were unanimous in calling the debate for Bernie Sanders. It's a puzzling split though there are those who are quick to point out the inherent unreliability of online polling. And there is a grain of truth in that argument. Online polling is naturally self-selective; it lacks the randomness of traditional polling and, to an extent, serves mostly to gauge the enthusiasm of a candidate's supporters. By that measure, while Sanders's supporters were the most enthusiastic crowd when reacting to the debate, that doesn't indicate that Sanders was, in fact, the "winner."

That said, while online polling may not be terribly reliable, is it any less so than the opinions of a few score pundits and commentators? Perhaps not. But we have some additional evidence to take into consideration. For one, focus groups, which are a bit more aligned to the average voter than the collective wisdom of columnists and talking heads, declared Sanders the unequivocal winner. From Fox News to CNN focus groups overwhelmingly preferred the performance of Bernie Sanders. But again, as with online polling and media consensus, focus groups, while telling a useful tale, are hardly scientific evidence of a win.

Who "won" the debate is a meaningless question.

Then there is the financial race. Since the debate, the Sanders campaign has pulled in close to $2 million in donations, an impressive haul. But again, as with online polling, this may only serve to point out the enthusiasm of his supporters. It doesn't say how much of that money came from new donors, nor does it say how much comes from those who had initially supported Clinton.

For Democratic pundits, all that was required for a Clinton win is for her to demonstrate enough competence to come off as a plausible candidate.

The fact is, who "won" the debate is a meaningless question because we were really witnessing two separate debates. Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton went into the debate with very different goals. And, in their own way, each candidate achieved what they set out to do. The problem for Clinton is what she set out to accomplish was essentially just to hold the line. Her campaign has been sputtering along, and the sheen of inevitability has long since worn off. The campaign has struggled to respond to Republican attacks and suffered a notable lack of enthusiasm. Her task in the debate was to try to change that narrative. She needed to appear, in that most intangible and useless of terms, "presidential." And she certainly did that, to the acclaim of Democratic pundits who have, in all honesty, never really taken the Sanders campaign very seriously. For them, all that was required for a Clinton win is for her to demonstrate enough competence to come off as a plausible candidate.

But Bernie Sanders had an entirely different goal: to introduce himself and his ideas to an audience that had not yet really begun to pay attention.  For political junkies, who have been following the race for months, it is very easy to miss the fact that the Sanders campaign isn't really on the radar of most of the electorate. We read dozens of stories on the Democratic primary every day, see Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton smeared across our Facebook news feeds, follow every poll. But we are a tiny minority of the electorate. For most, Bernie Sanders is a name who is recognized, but little more. Outside of the early primary states of Iowa and New Hampshire, where Sanders has been campaigning heavily, his name recognition is still quite low.

What Sanders needed to do, in the debate,  was to change his lack of recognition. And, I would submit, he more than succeeded at that goal. To that, there are two metrics that are more relevant than all the focus groups and fundraising and establishment opinions put together. The first of these is in the count of Google searches during the debate, where Sanders dominated from beginning to end:

"Sanders repeatedly saw spikes in Google interest after he spoke. After his intro. After he talked about guns. After basically everything else he said. About an hour after the debate began, Jim Webb attracted some attention after he complained about not having an opportunity to speak. But it was Sanders that drew attention the whole time. What's more, Sanders actually overpowered the long-term king of Google, Donald Trump. During the debate, Sanders continually attracted more Google interest than Trump."

That tells us that, as Sanders began to introduce himself to the broader electorate, they were interested enough in what he had to say to dig a little deeper. It is notable that, none of the other three candidates - Jim Webb, Lincoln Chafee, and Martin O'Malley - who also needed to break out to a wider audience, even came close to generating the level of interest that Sanders did. The second metric is in Twitter followers. Sanders racked up 35K new followers during the debate, nearly three times as many as did Clinton. So, not only were those new to Sanders interested in what he had to say, they liked it enough to follow him. And that is good news for the Sanders campaign. As he and his ideas reach a broader audience, they may prove to have real traction.  (Which is probably why he is polling rather well in both Iowa and New Hampshire, where most voters have seen a lot more of him than the nation as a whole.)

There were two debates on Tuesday night and two winners. In her quest to reassure the establishment that yes, she is a viable candidate, Hillary Clinton clearly won. But Bernie Sanders achieved a more impressive feat: reaching 15 million or so voters who didn't know him and piquing their interest. In that debate, Sanders was the clear winner. Time will tell which of these wins counts for more.