INDEPENDENT :
Hillary Clinton is the winner of the third and final presidential debate, according to voters in the first opinion polls of the night.
One survey, conducted by CNN/ORC, found that 52 per cent of voters believe Ms Clinton won the 90-minute debate on Wednesday night compared to 39 per cent of participants who said that her rival Donald Trump won the contest. Ms Clinton has now been declared the winner of all three televised debates by the CNN poll.
Democrats accounted for 36 per cent of the 547 registered voters surveyed , while only 29 per cent of respondents were Republicans. The survey was first conducted between October 15 and October 18 and voters were re-interviewed after the debate. Results carry a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 4 per cent.
The debate comes after nine women accused the Republican nominee of sexual assault over the course of 10 days. When he was questioned about his accusers at the debate, Mr Trump remained unapologetic and said that “there’s nobody that has more respect for women than I do.” He would later interrupt Ms Clinton on several occasions in addition to calling her “such a nasty woman.” Sixty per cent of debate watchers also said that Mr Trump spent the majority of the debate attacking Ms Clinton. Despite losing the people’s vote, Mr Trump outperformed the expectations of voters with nearly six in 10 viewers admitting that he did better than they anticipated. Forty-four per cent of voters said the same of Ms Clinton. Mr Trump was widely criticised for refusing to say if he’ll accept the final election results after voters hit polling booths on November 8. Even Republican National Chairman Reince Priebus broke away from his party’s candidate by telling reporters that Mr Trump will accept the election’s final results. Meanwhile, the latest YouGov poll also declared Ms Clinton the clear winner on Wednesday night. Out of 1,503 registered voters who tuned into the debate, 49 per cent of participants said Ms Clinton came out on top. Thirty-nine per cent of voters argued that Mr Trump won the contest while 12 per cent claimed it was a tie.
Sixty-eight per cent of voters disagreed with Mr Trump by suggesting that both candidates pledge to accept the final election results come November.
