October 04, 2012 06:11 PM UTC

CO media say Romney won but CO news stories on CO undecided voters don't support this

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• by: Jason Salzman

( – promoted by Colorado Pols)

Update 8:30 p.m.: Denver’s Fox 31 also brought together a group of 12 undecided voters yesterday, and I regret that I did not include Fox’s story in this post. Read it here. Fox 31’s undecided voters did not give Romney the victory. After the debate, one was leaning toward voting for a third party candidate, one toward Romney, and one toward Obama. Another was planning to vote for Obama. A fifth waa leaning toward an unspecified candidate.

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Colorado news outlets are reporting that Mitt Romney won last night’s debate (e.g., Denver Post “Round One: Romney”), but we all know it’s the undecided voters who count, and news stories about undecided voters in Colorado showed that they mostly weren’t swayed by the debate.

For example, 9News’ Kyle Clark asked a focus group of 12 undecided voters in Colorado who won the debate, and more said that Obama did.

Clark: Who thinks President Obama decisively won tonight’s debate?

[A third of the group raised their hands]

Clark: Who thinks Mitt Romney decisively won tonight’s debate?

[One man raised his hand]

Clark: Was any person in this room convinced to cast their vote for one man or another based on what you saw here tonight?

[No one raised a hand]

Clark: Not a single person in the room was convinced.

The Denver Post’s focus group of Colorado undecided voters came to pretty much the same conclusion, reporting that most members of its focus group were still on the fence.

The truth is, in Colorado, the best evidence we have so far about what really matters, the undecided voters, shows that the debate was, as 9News political analyst Ryan Frazier, a Republican, put it, “a bit of a wash.”

Yet the tenor of news coverage in Colorado, blaring a Romney win, did not reflect this reality.  9News and The Post both did the right thing by convening focus groups of undecided, even if the Post should have better spotlighted what these voters had to say.