2016 Presidential Debate: Polls Manipulated After Debate To Favor Donald Trump Over Hillary Clinton
Last night’s first presidential debate of 2016 was one that gave the world their first looks at Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump opposing one another directly. A lot of people think that the debates are going to play a huge part in the election, and they may be right. As soon as the debate was over, the immediate polls showed that Trump was the obvious winner, but there are now reports stating the polls were actually manipulated and falsified.
Immediate polls showed a lot of support going toward Trump even though the majority of the internet seemed confused by the debate, according to the Daily Mail. By Tuesday morning, Trump supporters were ecstatic by the results and how he had essentially “trumped” Clinton.
Most of the snap polls even had results that show Trump winning the first presidential debate of 2016 by a landslide.
#TrumpWon 25 Public Polls!! pic.twitter.com/R8Di9s0PkH
— ?Deplorable in Pink? (@pink_lady56) September 27, 2016
Obviously, the polls showing forth were also enough for Trump to take things in stride and believe he is on the right path.
Wow, did great in the debate polls (except for @CNN – which I don’t watch). Thank you!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) September 27, 2016
Trump supporters are jumping all over this and believe it is a sign of things to come in this election. However, it appears as if their enjoyment and excitement may have been a little premature and brought about by the deception of the internet.
According to the Daily Dot, a large number of Donald Trump supporters from Reddit and 4Chan slammed the online polls in order to manipulate them. Not only did they alter the numbers in their own ways, but they did it so that a false narrative was created to show the Republican presidential candidate had won.
The whole movement started by Reddit users in the pro-Trump community that is simply known as r/The_Donald. Around the exact same time, those over at 4Chan did the exact same thing and started attacking close to 70 online polls, including those from CNBC, Heavy, Fox 5, Time, Fortune, and numerous others.
Mere hours after the debate was over, the snap poll for CNBS had Trump destroying Clinton by more than 400,000 votes and leading 61 percent to 39 percent.
The NBC Nightly News poll was released at 10:43 p.m. on Twitter, less than an hour after the debate ended, and the result was much closer. It still had Trump leading and winning the debate, but only by a percentage score of 51-49.
With more than 200,000 subscribers in r/The_Donald on Reddit, it was easy for the online polls to be manipulated and in quick fashion. The problem with the online polls is that most of them don’t filter out internet bots, brigading, and social media versions of stuffing the ballot box.
Since more than 12 hours has passed, many are stating that Hillary Clinton actually won the debate and that could see her gain in the polls or move ahead, according to FiveThirtyEight. Many of the polls have started changing from late Monday night to Tuesday morning and have since moved the Democratic candidate above the Republican.
Donald Trump will still likely look at the first debate as a win for him since that was what the initial polls stated, but there’s still a long way to go.
Before the first debate, the 2016 presidential polls had Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton virtually tied among likely voters. In some battleground states, Trump had pulled ahead while the Democratic presidential candidate had moved in front of him in larger states. After the debate, it appeared as if the Republican candidate had taken a commanding lead, but 4Chan and Reddit played big parts in that result. It may be a false front now, but it could still be a sign of things to come.
[Featured Image by Win McNamee/Getty Images]
