Hattip to Pollster.com for the links – see also see their post from the first presidential debate about the methodologies used by these pollsters for the instant debate polls.

CNN poll:

Poll: Debate watchers say Obama wins

CBS poll of uncommitted voters:

CBS Poll: Uncommitted Voters Say Obama Won Final Debate

Democracy Corps focus group:

Undecideds Laughing At, Not With, McCain

See also:

Decisive debate win reinforces momentum for Obama

Media Curves poll:

Debate results for the 3rd 2008 Presidential Debate

Survey USA poll (California):

Heavily Democratic California Again Sees Decisive Obama Win In 3rd Presidential Debate

The Time article on the Democracy Corps focus group conducted by Stan Greenberg neatly illustrates the extent to which these polls show devastating numbers for McCain, far beyond just the question of who won:

The group of 50 uncommitted voters should have at least been receptive to McCain—Republicans and Independents outnumbered Democrats in the group by almost 4 to 1, and they started the evening with much warmer responses to McCain than to his Democratic opponent, Barack Obama. But by the time it was all over, so few of them had declared their support for McCain that there weren’t enough for Greenberg to separate them into a post-debate focus group. Meanwhile, the Obama supporters had to assemble in two different rooms to keep their discussion groups manageable.

Half of the voters thought that Obama “won” the debate, with 24% giving McCain the victory [..]. As with previous debates, however, the divergent personal reactions to the candidates were most striking. And those ultimately may end up defining the campaign for McCain. [..]

Once again, the focus group dials dove whenever McCain went on the attack, particularly when he talked about Bill Ayers and ACORN in what turned out to be the longest segment of the evening. The audience that started out giving McCain a 54/24 favorability rating [..] ended up almost evenly divided between warm and cool feelings toward him (50/48).

Obama started off with a lower, and divided, favorability rating (42/42) that climbed to 72/22 after 90 minutes. “Boring” and “zzzzz” were popular reviews of Obama’s performance from blogosphere pundits, but apparently the people have had enough excitement watching the market plummet and are in the mood for some mellowness. [..]

As for Obama, he continued to win over undecided voters on critical questions: Does he have what it takes to be president? A 38/50 split flipped to 56/34. Can voters trust him to make the right decisions? Obama rose from 30/50 to 48/40. Is he best equipped to handle the economic crisis? Voters split evenly between the two candidates at the start preferred Obama by 30 points by the end of the night.

Perhaps most significant was Obama’s success in reassuring voters that he understands who they are and what matters to them. He went from a 16-point to a 24-point advantage on “Is he on your side?” and made similar gains on the question of whether he would “bring the right kind of change,” from a 18 to 38-point advantage. And while the two candidates were even on the question of “who shares your values?” at the beginning of the debate, Obama held a 24-point lead by the end.