Democrats who watched the party’s presidential candidates debate on Saturday night thought that Sen. Bernie Sanders won the event, an Internet survey found, though they also said Hillary Clinton showed that she would do the best job of keeping the U.S. safe from terrorism.
Mr. Sanders was declared the winner by 44% of Democratic primary voters who watched the nationally televised debate, with 32% choosing Mrs. Clinton and 2% picking the third candidate onstage, Martin O’Malley, a former Maryland governor.
The survey, conducted for The Wall Street Journal by Google Consumer Surveys, polled 836 Democratic primary voters by displaying questions to people who visit a set of online news and entertainment websites. The Internet users were asked to answer the questions in exchange for access to those sites.
Democratic primary voters who answered the questions said that, based on the debate, Mr. Sanders was the candidate who could best handle the job of president and was best suited to improving the economy.
A substantial 58% judged Mr. Sanders as the candidate “who best understands the problems facing people like you,’’ compared with 27% who chose Mrs. Clinton and 4% who named Mr. O’Malley.
But Mrs. Clinton was viewed as best able to preserve national security and keep the U.S. safe from terrorism. Some 48% of Democrats in the survey named Mrs. Clinton as strongest on national security based on her debate performance, with 33% picking Mr. Sanders and 3% naming Mr. O’Malley.
The margin of error in the survey varied for each question but in all cases was below plus or minus 3.6 percentage points. In conducting the poll, Google Consumer Surveys infers a respondent’s gender, age, and geographic location based on anonymous browsing history and other data. On mobile devices, people answer questions in exchange for credits for books, music, and apps, and answer demographic questions when first downloading the app.
