Washington, DC - In one of the biggest surveys ever undertaken, more than 20,000 online voters cast 35% of their ballots for Carly Fiorina as the winner of last week's GOP debates.  Despite the media appeal of Donald Trump, only 14% of respondents picked him as the winner.

"The massive response shows the passion of voters as the 2016 Presidential Election campaign gets under way," according to Dan Weber, president of the Association of Mature American Citizens.  The 1.3 million member senior advocacy organization conducted the survey on its Web site over a four-day period starting soon after the Thursday debates were broadcast and ending at Midnight on Monday.

Despite the fact that Fiorina traded opinion and commentary with six other candidates for the Republican nomination in an early warm-up debate and Trump participated in a ten-person main event later in the evening, Fiorina emerged as the clear-cut winner of the combined discourse.  The AMAC survey shows she made the best impression of all the candidates garnering first place with more than 7,000 votes.  Trump came in third with about 3,000 votes.

Traditional polls usually sample select groups of 1,000 to 2,000 individuals; the association's survey took the form of "a simple, straightforward" question posted Friday on its Web site.  It asked members and visitors: "Who do you think did the best in the Republican Debates?"  More than 20,000 of them chose to participate then made an up or down decision by clicking the name of the debater they liked most.

"It is surprising that Carly was the candidate of choice for many seniors even though she was not on the main stage during the second debate.  That says something about what voters will be looking for this election,"   Weber said.  "Seniors appear to be looking for a young, principled, energetic candidate.  Carly obviously struck a sweet spot with politically engaged seniors during the first debate."