The first presidential debate between Joe Biden and Donald Trump went so poorly for Biden that there’s now a raging debate over whether or not Democrats should replace him on the ticket before the 2024 election. While the debate has already prompted a substantial reaction from pundits, political strategists, and Democratic donors, it will be some time before we have a clear picture of its impact on voters. In the meantime, below is an updating overview of the results of the first polls conducted after the debate (with the caveat that they should definitely be taken with a grain of salt).
Morning Consult poll suggests majority of voters want Biden replaced
The national post-debate poll, released Friday, was conducted among 2,068 respondents. Here are the top-line takeaways, per Morning Consult:
• 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.
Survey USA finds slight majority of Democrats think Biden should stay the course
Per Survey USA’s summary of the national poll, which was conducted among 3,300 adults, including 2,315 likely voters:
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 should continue his run for a second term in office; 34% say he should step aside and allow another Democrat to run. 10% aren’t sure. If Biden does not step 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.
538/Ipsos poll of debate watchers found little impact on votes
The poll, by 538 and Ipsos, was conducted (using Ipsos’s KnowledgePanel) among likely voters before and after the debate. Biden clearly lost the debate, according to their responses, but the impact on how people will vote was less dramatic:
[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.
This post has been updated.
