WASHINGTON — Sen. John F. Kerry improved his image with voters who watched his debate with President Bush last week, but didn't significantly shift their choice in the presidential race, a Times poll of debate viewers has found.
Although the debate did not diminish impressions of Bush on most questions, it did restore some of the luster Kerry had lost amid relentless Republican pounding since his party's convention in July, the poll found.
The key question will be whether those gains will help Kerry peel away voters from Bush in the days ahead.
Of those who watched Thursday's debate, more than three times as many called Kerry the winner as picked Bush, the poll found. The Democratic nominee also made modest gains with viewers on questions relating to national security and leadership. And the portion of debate viewers with favorable perceptions of Kerry increased from 52% before to 57% after.
Kerry's most dramatic advance in the survey came in convincing more voters that he had a thorough agenda for the next four years. Asked which candidate had the more detailed plan for the policies he would pursue if elected, viewers gave Bush a 9-percentage-point edge before the encounter; afterward, they preferred Kerry by 4 points.
"I thought [Kerry] did remarkably well within that format," said Joanne Sullivan, a registered Republican from Bremen, Maine. "He was very specific and went from Point A to Point B so much better than the platitudes that emerged from George Bush's side."
These survey results reflect attitudes only among registered voters who watched the debate. Their views are more apt to change than the views among voters overall, many of whom did not watch the debate.
The poll, conducted Thursday night and Friday, surveyed 1,368 registered voters who participated in a Times survey last week and agreed to be contacted after the Sept. 30 debate. Among the group, 725 voters said they had watched the debate; it is their responses the poll reports. The poll, supervised by polling director Susan Pinkus, has a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 4 percentage points.
The voters who watched the debate were slightly more favorable to Kerry than the overall electorate even before the encounter began, the poll showed.
For instance, in last week's Times poll, Kerry trailed Bush among all registered voters by 49% to 45%. But the voters who watched the matchup preferred Kerry by 48% to 47% for Bush before the debate. After the debate, viewers divided nearly the same way, with 49% favoring Kerry, 47% Bush.
