Live Coverage Of The First Republican Debate

I have thoughts about who won and lost the debate, but I’m not trusting myself on who will drop or get a bounce out of the debate. Why? As Lynn Vavreck pointed out, a key experiment out of Arizona State in 2004 showed that voters’ minds can be greatly shaped by who the media says won or lost the debate. So while it pains me to watch cable news, I’ll be paying attention to the talking heads tonight and over the next few days.

Just check his glowing Twitter mentions from members of the press corps: The media horde is likely to declare John Kasich the winner of the debate. For viewers at home, he’s not as much of a standout, at least based on his middling Google search traffic. But the post-debate spin often matters more than the reality.