Here Are the Ridiculous Post-Debate Overnight Online Polls

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Is it worth reporting the results of the overnight online polls following the debate? Sure. Why not? We all know that online polls are mostly garbage, but we also know that if you aggregate them we can turn dross into gold. So let’s do it! The chart on the right shows you the average of three online polls from Drudge, Time, and CNBC.

Let’s also check out Betfair. Unfortunately, I’ve never been quite sure I know how to interpret their trend charts, but if I did it right this time it looks like Cruz is up, Trump is even, and Rubio, Carson, and Bush are down. Since this is probably all meaningless, I suppose it doesn’t matter much if I’m interpreting the betting results right. Still, one of these days I guess I should figure it out for real.

If this stuff has any legitimacy at all, I’d say that (a) Cruz did well, (b) Rubio might have helped his cause, (c) Carson is ebbing, (d) Jeb is toast, and (e) nobody else changed their standing much. I’m ignoring the huge number of people who thought Trump won the debate because I refuse to believe it.

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We need to start raising significantly more in donations from our online community of readers, especially from those who read Mother Jones regularly but have never decided to pitch in because you figured others always will. We also need long-time and new donors, everyone, to keep showing up for us.

In "It's Not a Crisis. This Is the New Normal," we explain, as matter-of-factly as we can, what exactly our finances look like, how brutal it is to sustain quality journalism right now, what makes Mother Jones different than most of the news out there, and why support from readers is the only thing that keeps us going. Despite the challenges, we're optimistic we can increase the share of online readers who decide to donate—starting with hitting an ambitious $300,000 goal in just three weeks to make sure we can finish our fiscal year break-even in the coming months.

Please learn more about how Mother Jones works and our 47-year history of doing nonprofit journalism that you don't elsewhere—and help us do it with a donation if you can. We've already cut expenses and hitting our online goal is critical right now.

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