2012 Presidential Election, Presidential Debate | featured news

Voters say that President Barack Obama performed better than Republican rival Mitt Romney by a substantial margin in their second debate, according to a Reuters/Ipsos poll released on Wednesday. Forty-eight percent of registered voters gave the victory to Obama, while 33 percent say Romney prevailed in the Tuesday debate, the online poll found.

President Obama fights back in his second debate with Mitt Romney, banishing some of the doubts he raised in their first showdown... By the end of Tuesday's debate, it was obvious this highly competitive president very much wants a second term and, more, wants to win it decisively.

On the Internet, the real winner of Tuesday night’s presidential debate may just be the phrase “binders full of women.” Mitt Romney’s sound bite quickly spawned its own Twitter account, Facebook page with more than 161,000 likes and countless online memes.

Here is a complete transcript of President Obama and Mitt Romney’s remarks at the second presidential debate at Hofstra University in New York on Oct. 16, 2012. Remarks from the two candidates were updated as the debate unfolded.

Debate moderator Candy Crowley interjected during Mitt Romney's remarks in Tuesday's presidential debate, saying that President Obama "did in fact" call the attack on a U.S. consulate in Benghazi, Libya an act of terror the day after the incident.

After a poor performance in the first presidential debate two weeks ago, President Barack Obama came back strong in the second one, winning perceived victories over Mitt Romney in two instant-reaction polls -- one of debate-watching registered voters, the other of debate-watchers who went into the debate uncommitted to either candidate.

USA TODAY's Paul Davidson, Tim Mullaney, Gregory Korte, Susan Davis and Aamer Madhani took a deeper look at some of the claims Obama and Romney made in the second debate.

For candidates who want to prepare for every possible question that could be thrown at them, the format for Tuesday night's presidential debate is slightly terrifying: It is a town hall-style debate, which means that the questions come from uncommitted voters. When political reporters are posing the questions, the candidates usually have a good idea what to expect. But when members of the public get the chance to weigh in, the candidates can sometimes face curve balls that leave them flummoxed.

The Obama campaign appears to be taking nearly every opportunity ahead of the second presidential debate to tell Americans what to expect from President Obama, while the Romney camp has remained essentially mum – a sharp contrast to the days before the first debate when the parallel strategy was to lower expectations.

Losing ground to Republican Mitt Romney on a host of issues, President Barack Obama faces a serious challenge to put his re-election bid back on track when the two men face off on Tuesday in their second debate.