I just re-read a line I posted earlier and changed my mind about it. It was the one that went, "I don't think we have any real post-debate polls yet. When we do, I wouldn't expect them to reflect any real gain for Kerry."
I'm thinking I discounted the "horse race" mentality of the press, and with the tendency of some pollsters to hedge their positions. I think there will be a number of polls that show Kerry even or maybe a little ahead. Why? Because "Kerry Comes From Behind With Debate Victory" is a better headline than "Debate Has No Impact on Polls." Even Fox News can afford the leisure, this far before Election Day, of going with the hot story.
I'm also thinking that we forget, or at least I forgot how impressive Kerry's numbers were on the debate. Going in, the polls had Bush at around 48% and Kerry at 43% or thereabouts. So if on the question of which candidate "won," Bush got 48% and Kerry got 43%…well, that would pretty much mean that no minds were changed; that everyone thought their guy was still their guy. For Kerry to even tie Bush in the post-debate polling would probably mean that a certain number of Bush supporters thought Kerry outperformed their candidate, which is not an easy admission for most voters to make, and one that's indicative of a certain softness in their Bush preference. That alone would be great news for Kerry. That he beat Bush by at least ten points (twenty in some counts) means that at the very least, he connected with a lot of people who were predisposed to vote Republican. He did not rack up those numbers just with Democrats or even with Democrats and Undecideds.
So I'll change and predict that we're about to see a couple of major polls that will have Kerry and Bush in a dead heat…and at least one that puts Kerry ahead.