Who was helped/hurt most by the GOP debates?

Who was helped/hurt most by the GOP debates?

Although the media reports might lead you to think he screwed up, in reality The Donald held on to his supporters, and even jumped up a point, although that's within the margin of error.

The biggest gainers were Ted Cruz and Carly Fiorina, who each jumped at least six points in the polls. Cruz went up seven from 6 to 13, Fiorina jumped six from a barely-in 2 to a solid 8. Ben Carson jumped three and has now (rather improbably) reached double figures.

Jeb Bush and Scott Walker were the biggest losers, with their identical performances causing a drop from a tie for second place to a tie for sixth. Chris Christie just about debated himself out of contention. He was at 3% before the debate, but has dropped to 1%.

In terms of "who won the debate?", Fiorina seems to have won by a landslide. 22% of the voters felt she was the best, while only 2% thought she was the worst, for a "net score" of +20. Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz also performed well by that measurement. The worst "net scores" went to The Donald and Rand Paul, with -11 apiece.

Trump, as you might expect, created the most polarization. He had the second highest "best performance" score and the highest "worst performance" score, indicating that very few people are neutral about him. On the opposite side of that coin is Scott Walker, about whom people felt neither very positive nor very negative. Walker's performance has to be considered better than those of Rand Paul, Chris Christie, Lindsay Graham and Jeb Bush, who got lots of negative responses without any significant positives to offset them.

Since Sen Graham had barely enough support to qualify for the first debate and also performed poorly, it would appear that his candidacy can be declared officially dead. Christie's campaign may not be quite ready for burial yet, but it has to be on life support.