CO focus group breaks for Obama after debate

Democratic pollster Stan Greenberg arranged a focus group yesterday to gauge the response to the second presidential debate between U.S. Sens. John McCain (R-Ariz.) and Barack Obama (D-Ill.).

The group consisted of 50 undecided Colorado voters who were "slightly more female (58%), mostly middle-aged, dominated by former Bush voters, and split evenly along partisan lines." The results:

The voters awarded Obama the “win” (38% to 30%, with the rest choosing no clear winner). But that result was actually the least useful of the evening. Because while the earlier debate did not result in any net change in support for the two candidates, Obama walked away with a clear lead in new voters tonight. After the debate ended, 26% of the audience had become McCain supporters while 42% said they planned to vote for Obama. Only a quarter of the group was still undecided. 

Obama also made big gains in his favorability ratings, jumping from 54/36 before the debate to 80/16 afterwards, while McCain saw a less dramatic increase from 48/46 to 56/36.

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