Can debates like the one tonight move poll results? Yes, but not in the way you might think.
In 2004, Kim Fridkin and a team of scholars at Arizona State University ran an experiment. They showed some people an entire presidential debate as it was happening, while others saw the debate plus 20 minutes of post-debate media coverage by different news organizations. Some news outlets covered John Kerry more favorably than George W. Bush, and some did the opposite.
People’s assessments of who won the debate — and their evaluations of the candidates more generally — were affected by which media outlet they were assigned to watch after the debate. The favorability of the coverage changed voters’ minds about the debate they had just seen only moments before.
