At the opening of Wednesday’s CBS This Morning, co-host Anthony Mason touted a new poll conducted by the network immediately following Tuesday night’s chaotic Democratic Debate. The survey of “Democratic debate watchers” found that 47% felt “nervous” about the field of 2020 candidates after watching the free-for-all.

“I was worried about you up there,” Mason remarked to fellow co-host Gayle King, who served as one of the debate moderators. “The gunfire was going in both directions and everybody had to duck,” he added. King agreed: “I know, Anthony, there was so much incoming, a couple of times I’m like, ‘Okay, alright, everyone. Senator, Senator, Senator.’”

Moments later, Mason noted: “In a CBS News poll after the debate, nearly half of viewers we spoke to said they were nervous about the candidates. Almost the same amount said they were optimistic.”

In the poll, respondents were asked to “check all that apply” when confronted with a series of adjectives to describe their feelings about the debate: 47% felt “nervous,” 42% felt “optimistic,” 25% felt “inspired,” 25 % felt “excited,” 16% felt “pessimistic,” and 13% felt “uninspired.”

Another interesting finding was that 69% of viewers thought the candidates spent more of their time “criticizing each other” rather than “making the case for themselves.”

After the poll findings were repeated early in the 8:00 a.m. ET hour, King turned to 60 Minutes correspondent John Dickerson and wondered: “Bernie Sanders entered the debate as the frontrunner. After last night's performance, does he remain in that position, do you think?”

In response, Dickerson seemed to channel some of the nervousness of Democratic viewers:

I think so. They all discovered he was the frontrunner in a way....And it felt like one of those disaster films where somebody rummages through the drawer throwing anything....and that was part of the problem, is it was a diffuse kind of yelling at Bernie Sanders....Nobody was able to really prosecute the case against Bernie Sanders....And if you’re unable to stop him, then it’s a good night for him, even though in the aggregate it was a night full of kind of messiness for Democrats.

Things must be bad for Democrats when the media are comparing a debate among the candidates to a “disaster film.”

Here is are excerpts of the February 26 debate coverage: