The President must have won the debate in the eyes of the people, as he’s widened his lead according to the daily tracking poll from Zogby International:
A day after the final debate, President Bush has opened a four-point lead over Democratic rival Senator John Kerry, according to a new Reuters/Zogby daily tracking poll. The telephone poll of 1220 likely voters was conducted from Tuesday through Thursday (October 12-14, 2004)…
Pollster John Zogby: ?While Bush– now at 48%– had another good night continuing his upward trend, Kerry appears stuck at 44%. The good news for the President is that he has improved his performance among the small group of undecideds. Nearly a quarter now say that he deserves to be re-elected?up from 18% in our last poll.
Rasmussen has similar results: 3.5% lead for the President, Kerry slowly losing ground.
UPDATE: TIPP has similar results, 47-44 for Bush, and the Washington Post has an outlier poll showing a 48-48 deadlock with no post-debate movement. This isn’t cherry-picking, folks, this is the whole spectrum of tracking polls.