For the last few days, there have been a lot of opinions from the pundits and talking heads of the media about who won the GOP debate last Wednesday. I think these two polls answer that question pretty emphatically. They are the first two polls released showing GOP presidential preference since the debate -- and it looks like Carly Fiorina is the hands-down winner.
Why? Because she is the only candidate to substantially improve her position since then. She moved into a tie with Carson in the CNN / ORC Poll -- actually besting him by a single point (which is well within the margin of error). And she finished only 3 points behind Carson in the NBC News Poll. What was a two-man race last week, has now become a three-person race. Carson and Trump basically held their positions in these new polls.
The really shocking thing (at least to me) is the free fall Scott Walker is experiencing. He once led the polls, but now scored less than 1% in the CNN / ORC Poll, and got only 3% in the NBC News Poll. Is it over for Walker?
The CNN / ORC Poll was done between September 17th and 19th of a random national sample of 444 Republicans, and has a margin of error of 4.5 points.
The NBC News Poll was done between September 16th and 18th of a national sample of 5,118 voters, and has a 2 point margin of error.
