Undecided voters who watched last night’s presidential debate on an Xbox said President Obama is better suited than Republican nominee Mitt Romney to handle the United States’ foreign affairs.
Microsoft released the the results of its polling of the third and final debate between Obama and Romney in the final post-debate survey of subscribers to its Xbox Live service. Among 2,500 users who said they were undecided before the debate, 56 percent said Obama presented more compelling arguments on how the country should interact with the rest of the world. And by night’s end 39 percent of previously undecided voters shifted toward supporting the president, compared to 18 percent who did so for the former Massachusetts governor.
More than 100,000 Xbox owners watched the debate on their video-game systems and participated in Microsoft’s real-time polling. Over the course of the 90-minute matchup, users were presented with questions gauging the candidates’ responses on matters like Syria, Israel, the war in Afghanistan and combatting terrorism.
Even on topics on which the candidates largely agree—the eventual drawdown of U.S. forces in Afghanistan, for instance—Xbox users favored Obama’s answers. For much of the debate, the president remained in attack mode, jabbing at what he argued was Romney’s relative inexperience on the foreign stage. Sixty percent of undecideds thought Obama won the round on Afghanistan, compared to 14 percent or Romney; only a quarter thought their ideas were about equal.
The spread was nearly as pronounced on how the United States should approach the uprising in Syria against President Bashar al-Assad. Though both Obama and Romney stated their support for arming rebel groups, coordinating actions with Israel and Turkey, and pressuring Assad to leave power, the president won Xbox’s undecided voters 71 percent to 30 percent.
Xbox users were less divided on the question of whether the United States should spend less money on the military. Though the president defended planned cuts to the Defense Department’s budget, Romney made it a key point of contention. The debate hit a viral moment when Obama rebutted Romney’s complaint that the U.S. Navy currently sports fewer ships than at any time since 1917. “We also have fewer horses and bayonets, because the nature of our military has changed,” Obama said.
Forty-seven percent of undecided Xbox users agreed that the country is spending too much on defense, while 28 percent said too little.
Romney fared far better when it came to planned relations with China. Again, both candidates’ answers hit the same notes—wariness toward China as an economic adversary balanced with the possibility of warmer diplomatic relations—but on this issue the undecided voters broke just about evenly, with 37 percent favoring Obama’s response to 36 percent preferring Romney’s.
While the debate last night in Boca Raton, Fla. fixated on foreign policy, the candidates at times veered back toward domestic issues such as public education, with 80 percent of undecided gamers saying the federal government should increase school funding.
Microsoft partnered with the polling firm YouGov when beginning this venture, which included the creation of a politics channel on Xbox Live. Since the major-party conventions last summer, Xbox users have been able to access footage of campaign rallies, clips from NBC News and The Daily Show, and, of course, polling during presidential debates.
And though Xbox users gave the first presidential debate to Romney, the Democratic ticket rallied. A plurality of undecided users gave the vice-presidential debate to Vice President Joe Biden, while a majority broke for Obama in last week’s town-hall-style meeting with Romney.
Under the normal customs of video gaming, Romney and his running mate, Rep. Paul Ryan of Wisconsin, are obligated to run out for slurpees and Hot Cheetos next time they bump into Obama and Biden.
