Instant poll results during last night's vice-presidential debate between Vice President Joe Biden and Congressman Paul Ryan show no clear winner.
The debate was less a discussion and more a verbal brawl, with the two candidates wrestling over foreign policy, Afghanistan, Iran's nuclear program, Mitt Romney's tax plan, the Affordable Care Act and abortion care. Moderator Martha Raddatz of ABC News played referee in match that started off antagonistic and only got more heated from there.
A CNN/ORC poll of viewers showed Ryan with a 4-point lead over Biden, 48 percent to 44 percent, but that is within the poll's 5-point margin of error.
In contrast, a CBS News poll of only undecided voters gave the win to Biden by a huge margin. Fifty percent said Biden won, while only 31 percent said Ryan won. A full 19 percent said it was a tie.
The contest for public opinion is equally split. While both sides seem pleased with their candidate's performance and dismissive of the other's, Democrats seem happier with Biden's presentation than conservatives are with Ryan's.
This is likely due to the bombastic nature of Biden's debate. He attacked Ryan, along with Mitt Romney, relentlessly, calling out what he referred to as "malarkey" from the Republican.
After Obama's lackluster and subdued debate performance last week, Democrats needed an over-sized act from Biden to re-energize flagging enthusiasm and prop up the campaign until the second presidential debate on Tuesday.
In that task, Biden has succeeded. "Perhaps Mr. Biden can be credited with what in baseball statistics would be termed a 'hold': something a bit shy of either a win or a save and which will probably seem perfunctory with the passage of time, but which might have done his team a bit of good," said Nate Silver of FiveThirtyEight.
"Democrats can walk away with a spring in their step again, confident that the story line is no longer all about Mr Obama's awful showing last week," says R.L.G. at The Economist. "A modest net positive for the Democrats."
Whether that will be enough to halt Obama's slide in the polls remains to be seen.
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