Romney wins first debate

Romney wins first debate

Republican Mitt Romney won Wednesday’s first presidential debate with President Barack Obama, according to a CNN/ORC International poll of registered voters who watched the nationally televised event.

Sixty-seven percent of those surveyed said Mr Romney fared better, compared with 25% for Mr Obama, according to results aired on CNN after the match concluded. Forty-six percent said they found Romney more likeable, compared with 45% for Mr Obama, CNN reported.

The CNN poll interviewed 430 Americans by telephone after the debate and has a margin of error of plus or minus 4.5 percentage points.

During the 90-minute debate at the University of Denver in Colorado, Mr Romney tried to paint Mr Obama as a big-government Democrat while Mr Obama said Mr Romney’s plans favoured the rich at the expense of the middle class.

Mr Obama has held an edge over the former Massachusetts governor in recent polls of likely voters. The president led Mr Romney, 49% to 46%, in a national NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll released on Tuesday, down from 50% to 45% in a comparable survey two weeks earlier.

A NPR poll released on Wednesday gave Mr Obama a seven-point lead, 51% to 44%, among likely voters nationally. That survey of 800 likely voters was conducted on Sept 26-30 and has a margin of error of plus or minus 3.5 percentage points.

Mr Romney tore into the first presidential debate with the driving passion of a man who thinks he is losing an election.

The president appeared every inch the battered incumbent, drained by four painful years, apparently playing it safe because - until Wednesday at least - he was winning.

But at the end of 90 minutes of thrust and parry it was Mr Obama's team which was thrown on the defensive, as Mr Romney seemed to carry off the victory he needed to fire up what had been a flagging campaign.

The president's team apparently believes that the Republican's smooth performance will soon show up in polling results ahead of the Nov 6 election.

``We don't care about national polls,'' Obama senior advisor David Plouffe told reporters, arguing that the complicated state-by-state election map remains problematic for Mr Romney.

``The question is, in those battleground states, what is Romney's path to 270?'' Mr Plouffe said, referring to the electoral vote total needed to win the White House.

The next debate between the two candidates is scheduled for Oct 16 at Hofstra University in Hempstead, New York.

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