Kamala Harris’ post-debate performance is drawing comparisons to Hillary Clinton‘s and other former candidates as new flash polls reveal the vice president’s standing among voters.
Harris and former President Donald Trump took to the stage in Philadelphia on Tuesday night for their first presidential debate. They sparred over issues including immigration, the economy and abortion, but the debate also saw the former president fact-checked four times for repeating false claims that the 2020 election was rigged and promoting a conspiracy theory about migrants in Ohio abducting and eating pets.
Both candidates declared victory after the debate, but CNN‘s flash poll revealed 63 percent of viewers thought Harris won the debate, compared to 37 percent who said the same about Trump.
Vice President and Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris during a presidential debate with former President Donald Trump at the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, on September 10. Previous post-debate polls may serve as a warning to Harris.
SAUL LOEB/AFP Via Getty Images
According to pollster Nate Silver, winning the post-debate CNN poll “typically does translate into gains in post-debate polls.”
“There’s still a good chance that Trump could become president again,” he added, before admitting, “although Harris probably reduced the chances of that last night.”
According to previous CNN post-debate flash polls, Democrats may have to hold off any celebrations.
In 2012, post-debate CNN polling found that viewers thought Republican candidate Mitt Romney had won the first debate against Barack Obama—after which his standing in the polls rose—with 67 percent of respondents choosing him as the winner. Romney ultimately lost the election by a 4-point margin.
In 2016, CNN polling showed that Clinton came out on top in all three debates against Trump, by almost an identical margin as Harris in the first debate. Sixty-two percent of respondents thought Clinton won the first debate, while 27 percent chose Trump.
Additionally, 41 percent of the poll’s respondents identified themselves as Democrats, while only 26 percent were Republicans and the rest were independents, so it is unsurprising that Harris did well.
CNN’s flash poll from this year’s debate between President Joe Biden and Trump showed that Trump won the debate by a much larger margin of 34 percent than Harris’ 26 percent. The debate ultimately led to Biden ending his reelection campaign amid concerns over his age and cognitive ability.
Newsweek has contacted the Trump and Harris campaigns for comment via email.
Thomas Gift, associate professor of political science and director of the center on US Politics at University College London, warned that not too much should be taken from post-debate flash polls.
“Only a fraction of Americans watched the debate live,” he told Newsweek, “and these are voters who are disproportionately politically activated and have already made up their minds on Harris and Trump. Most voters will form their opinion of the debate through short, selective clips within the echo chamber of partisan media. If all you watch is Fox News or Newsmax, for example, you’ll see a much different retelling of the debate than if you consume news through most of the mainstream media.”
The CNN poll surveyed 605 registered U.S. voters who said they watched the debate. It had a margin of error of plus or minus 5.3 percentage points.
Dr. Jonathan Parker, senior lecturer in U.S. politics at Keele University in England, said the figures indicate that the impact of debates on election outcomes is not certain.
“Kamala Harris put in an excellent performance in Tuesday’s presidential debate against Donald Trump, but its long-term impact is much less certain,” he told Newsweek. “There is a vigorous debate among experts as to whether debates matter over a longer time period.
“First, most people who watched it already had a preference and will judge it through a partisan lens. It may influence those who truly haven’t made up their minds, but we don’t know how many watched. Second, while the debate itself may or may not influence opinion, the media coverage over the next week which discusses and shares clips of a strong performance by Harris and less effective or off-putting performance by Trump, may be more powerful in shifting opinions than the debate itself.”
He continued by warning that it will take weeks before we see any evidence of the impact of the debate in the polls, but he added that Harris made a “good first impression” on voters, “which in a tight election may prove crucial for a relatively unknown candidate, regardless of its overall impact on the polls.”
Following the debate, Harris’ chances of winning the presidential election in November improved with 20 leading bookmakers.
She also remains ahead in the FiveThirtyEight and RealClearPolitics polling averages, as well as Nate Silver’s polling average. FiveThirtyEight’s prediction model shows that Harris is projected to win the election in November with 279 Electoral College votes.
However, Silver‘s model shows that Trump has a 61 percent chance of winning the electoral vote compared to Harris’ 38 percent.
