Winston-Salem, NC-- Two debate experts from Wake Forest University scored Barack Obama and Mitt Romney during the presidential debate on Tuesday night.
News 2's Liz Crawford watched the debate on Tuesday night with Al Louden, Ph.D. and Jarrod Atchison, Ph.D., two Wake Forest professors and debate experts.
The debate experts thought both candidates were more aggressive and overall did a better job than the first debate. Another thing they noticed were "coachable moments", things the candidates were coached to do.
Jarrod Atchison, Ph.D., the Debate Director at Wake Forest University said, "Someone has coached Governor Romney that he needs to make sure he looks aggressive and someone has also coached President Obama that he has to stand up for himself so the combination of those two is closing the gap of space probably more than they would have otherwise."
"People get weary of watching things but if they hear something new they have to actually think about it," said Al Louden, Ph.D., Communication Chair at Wake Forest University.
"The one who lost the first one will tend to be picked as the winner of the second one often because we want to have this sort of fairness notion so it keeps the contest interesting," added Louden about Obama being probable to win the debate.
Louden and Atchison scored the candidates in five categories:
Presence: Obama won in the last third of the debate
Strength of Arguments: Draw
Credibility: Draw
Appropriateness: Draw with both candidates appealing to their audiences
Persona: Obama won towards the end when he gave his answer on Libya.
Overall, both experts agreed that the debate was a draw between the candidates. However, because Obama was so far behind from the last debate, this was a greater victory for Obama.
During the last presidential debate, News 2 attended a Wake Forest watching seminar. The students provided real -time feedback through a clicker survey.
READ: Wake Forest U Hosts Debate Watch With Real Time Feedback From Students
READ: First 2012 Presidential Debate WFU Clicker Results
Wake Forest will host another debate watch with real-time student feedback on October 22nd. However, they'll also have clickers tracking the feedback of a Wake alumni group who will be watching from Washington, D.C.
WFMY News 2