What the Polls Are Saying After the Trump-Biden Debate (2024)

Democracy Corps/Greenberg Research/PSG Consulting’s dial groups recoiled a bit at Biden

The results of Democracy Corps’ national online dial meter research before and after the debate on Thursday — among 374 registered voters from key demographics of Democratic-leaning conflicted voters — contains an assortment of bad news for Biden (other than the fact that Trump did not himself benefit from the debate in almost any way among these voters):

The dials were conducted with large samples of dual haters and third-party voters and the so-called base of Blacks, Hispanics, white unmarried women, and GenZ and millennials. These are all strongly leaning Democratic voters who give Biden 65% of their vote in a two-way ballot. Yet only half have warm feelings for Biden or Harris.

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Responses of Blacks, Hispanics and GenZ-white millennials show why they seem to be underperforming for Biden. White unmarried women surprise on the level of support for Biden and resistance to the idea of another Trump term.

Dual haters play an important part in Biden’s fortunes, but it was because Biden, not Trump, did not raise his approval with these voters.

Before the debate, they hoped he would see their economic concerns and affordability, have a plan on immigration, show he has the mental fitness, address the foreign conflicts, and protect women’s rights.

The debate dropped Biden’s already low approval by 2 points but his vote lead dropped by 8 points. He took his biggest hit with Black voters and Hispanics, as well as third-party voters.

When asked about their overall impression, the first was on his cognitive and physical fitness, expressing concern about his age, mental acuity, saying words like “confused” and “frail.” Then, they commented on his difficulty articulating his thoughts and his train of thought. Some respondents spoke of honesty. …

The biggest shifts against Biden started at 5 points and came on the border, common sense, getting higher wages and salaries, infrastructure, controlling inflation, being strong, and making me safer.

Read the rest of the results at Democracy Corps.

Data for Progress flash poll shows little if any advantage for Biden alternatives

The national poll, conducted on the web on Friday among 1,011 likely voters, found that independent voters who watched or read about the debate were clearly not at all impressed with Biden’s performance. Overall, respondents favored Trump over Biden, 48 to 45 percent. Per Data for Progress’ summary of the results:

Among all likely voters, 47% say they watched the debate live, while 23% say they saw clips from the debate online and 10% say they read about it. Twenty-one percent of voters did not watch footage or read about the debate.

Among those who watched the debate or read about the debate, 32% approve of Biden’s performance, including 63% of Democrats who watched or read about the debate. Fifty-one percent of likely voterswho watched or read about the debate say they approve of Trump’s performance, a +19-point margin over Biden.Biden’s performance is 50 points underwater among Independents who watched or read about the debate, compared to a -5-point disapproval rating among Independents for Trump’s performance.

The poll also found that while Biden’s age continues to be a major concern among likely voters, “there is not yet clear evidence that an alternative nominee would significantly outperform him against Trump in a head-to-head matchup.” However, regarding vice president Kamala Harris, a plurality of respondents believed she should be the one to replace Biden if he decides to drop out, and the poll also found that “Trump holds a +14-point advantage over Biden on ‘fit to run the country,’ while that advantage shrinks to just 3 points when compared to Harris”:

You can read the rest of the results at Data for Progress.

Morning Consult poll suggests majority of voters want Biden replaced

The national post-debate poll, released Friday, was conducted among 2,068 registered voters. Overall, the respondents favored Biden over Trump 45 to 44 percent. Here are the top-line takeaways, per Morning Consult’s summary:

• While our post-debate survey shows President Joe Biden has lost no immediate ground to Trump, most voters, including a 47% plurality of Democrats, say Biden should be replaced as the Democratic candidate for president.

• A clear majority of debate-viewing voters (57%) say Trump performed best on Thursday, including 19% of Democrats, 60% of independents and 93% of Republicans.

• The Biden campaign viewed last night’s debate as another opportunity to assuage concerns about his age and mental acuity, but that didn’t work: Among debate viewers, 78% say Biden is too old, compared with 64% of all voters who said the same days before the debate.

• In a shift from 2020, voters were slightly more likely to say the debate moderators favored Trump than Biden.

The poll also found that Kamala Harris was the slight-favorite Biden alternative among Democrats:

Three in 10 Democratic voters want Harris to take the reins were Biden to not be the party’s nominee, followed by 20% who said it should be California Gov. Gavin Newsom, who shook off questions about the matter while speaking with reporters after the debate.

You can read the rest of the results at Morning Consult.

Survey USA poll finds slight majority of Democrats think Biden should stay the course

The national post-debate poll surveyed 3,300 adults, including 2,315 likely voters, and was conducted and released on Friday. Overall, respondents favored Trump over Biden, 45 to 43 percent. According to Survey USA’s summary, there were several data points which addressed the major questions following Biden’s poor debate performance:

Just 29% of all voters say Biden is up to the job; 57% say he is not. Among Biden’s own voters, just 64% say he is up to the job; 14% say he is not; 22% are not sure. … 55% of likely Democratic voters say Biden shouldcontinue his runfor a second term in office; 34% say he should step aside and allow another Democrat to run. 10% aren’t sure. If Biden doesnotstep aside, 57% of likely Democratic voters say the Democratic Party should nominate him to run again at the Democratic National Convention this August; 33% say they should nominate another Democrat instead.

If Biden is replaced on the top of the ticket, which Democrat should replace him?

• 43% of likely Democratic voters say it should be Vice President Kamala Harris, including 63% of Black Democrats, 56% of Democrats age 35 to 49, 55% of those with children under 18 at home, and 53% of those with high school educations. Harris leads or ties as the top choice among every demographic subgroup.

• 16% choose California Governor Gavin Newsom, including a high of 24% among the oldest and typically most reliable voters, where he is tied with Harris. Newsom also sees outsized support among Democrats with higher income and education levels, and among men.

• 8% choose Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, who outperforms his numbers among white and rural Democrats.

• 7% choose Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer, who outperforms her numbers among liberals.

• 4% choose Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro; 2% Maryland Governor Wes Moore; 1% choose someone else. 20% are undecided.

You can read the rest of the results at Survey USA.

538/Ipsos poll of debate watchers found little impact on votes

The poll by 538 and Ipsos, was conducted (using Ipsos’sKnowledgePanel) among likely voters before and after the debate. Biden clearly lost the debate, according to their responses, but there wasn’t much of an impact on their potential votes:

[T]urning in the best performance in a debate only matters if it translates into votes — so we also asked poll respondents (both those who watched the debate and those who didn’t) which candidates they were considering voting for after the debate. And if there was any silver lining from the debate for Biden, this was it: The face-off doesn’t seem to have caused many people to reconsider their vote. That said, Biden did lose a small share of potential voters: Post-debate, 46.7 percent of likely voters said they were considering voting for him, which was 1.6 percentage points lower than before the debate. (Note that this was not a straight horse-race poll; respondents could say they were considering voting for multiple candidates.)

Trump’s support, meanwhile, barely budged, perhaps a reflection of the fact that, while Biden performed poorly on Thursday night, voters weren’t especially impressed with Trump’s performance either. The share of likely voters who said they were considering voting for Trump after the debate climbed from 43.5 percent to just 43.9 percent.

Despite not participating in the debate, third-party candidates actually gained more ground than Trump: Independent Robert F. Kennedy Jr. gained 1.1 points in potential support, Green Party candidate Jill Stein went from 3.1 percent to 4.2 percent and Libertarian Chase Oliver went from 2.7 percent to 3.9 percent.

538 also notes that the percentage of double haters who dislike both Biden and Trump remained unchanged before and after the debate at 21 percent.

You can read the rest of the results at 538 and Ipsos.