Obama won third debate, poll reveals

GlobalPost

Barack Obama has been declared the winner of the third presidential debate, according to a viewer poll.

The survey of American viewers found 56% believed Obama won the the October 22 debate on foreign policy, while 33% gave the win to Mitt Romney, the USA Today/Gallup poll found.

Even 16% of Republicans credited the President with doing the better job. 

The President's positive rating earlier this week, along with his strong performance in the second debate, helped him recover from his poor performance in the first debate, the Huffington Post reported.

But looking at the debate season overall, viewers believed Republican representative Romney had a narrow edge, with 46% saying Romney won, while 44% believe Obama did the better job, CNN said.

"What we find in our research is that debates don't work in a cumulative fashion in a sense of adding up the pluses and minuses per candidate per debate," University of Missouri professor Mitchell McKinney, who studies political communication, told USA Today.

"On several levels, the first debate really has the greatest effect; it's the first impression. That's the first time we see them together, and we size them up in terms of comparison shopping."

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