Poll results

CNN said Hillary won the debate. Why do so many polls seem to say otherwise?

Take a look for example, at the polls shared  by conservative news aggregation site, The Drudge Report. At the top of their list was a seemingly scientific post-debate poll claiming to come from ABC News. According to ABC News, Drudge claimed, 54% of respondents would now be voting for Trump, followed by 21% for Jill Stein, 15% for Gary Johnson, and just 10% for Hillary Clinton, despite the fact that Stein and Johnson didn't even compete in the debate.

The poll, which Drudge linked to and which was shared by some #TrumpWon supporters on Twitter, actually came from a fake ABC News site with the address "abcnewsgo.co," not the outlet's real site, "abcnews.go.com."

Other polls weren't so conclusive. Slate, Time, Breitbart, and CNBC online polls all gave the debate to Trump. Even though Slate and Time warned their readers that their site's polls were mostly fun and unscientific ("Online reader polls like this one are not statistically representative of likely voters, and are not predictive of the debate outcome will effect the election," Timewrote), the numbers and the subsequent viral screenshots sharply contrasted with the dominant ("mainstream") narrative that Hillary had won.