CNN snap poll: Majority of debate viewers say Harris outperformed Trump on stage

CNN
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Registered voters who watched Tuesday's presidential debate largely agree that Kamala Harris performed better than Donald Trump, according to a CNN poll of debate viewers conducted by SSRS. The vice president also exceeded debate viewers' expectations for her and Joe Biden's performance on stage against the former president earlier this year, according to the poll.

Sixty-three percent of debate viewers said Harris performed better on stage in Philadelphia. Before the debate, those same voters were split on which candidate would do better, with 50% saying Harris would and 50% saying Trump. And afterward, 96% of Harris supporters who tuned in said their chosen candidate would have done a better job, while a smaller majority of 69% of Trump supporters said he had a better night.

Voters who watched the debate also left with a better opinion of Harris compared to their pre-debate impression, while few changed their opinion of Trump overall. Their views on each candidate's strengths on respective issues continued to reflect the dynamics of national opinion polls: Trump had an advantage on the economy, immigration and commander in chief, while Harris was more trusted on abortion and protecting democracy.

The vast majority of viewers said the event had no impact on their decision to run for president. However, among those who watched the debate, Trump supporters were more likely than Harris supporters to say the event had given them cause to reconsider their candidacy.

The results of the snap poll mark a shift in reaction to the June presidential debate, when voters who watched the Trump-Biden face-off said Trump outperformed his Democratic rival, 67% to 33%. That June debate was a rare victory for Trump: In 2020 and 2016, Biden and Hillary Clinton outperformed him in all presidential debates, according to debate observers.

The poll results reflect only the opinions of voters who watched the debate and are not representative of the views of the electorate as a whole. Viewers of the debate were 6 percentage points more likely to lean Republican than Democrat, resulting in an audience that leaned about 4 percentage points more Republican than all registered voters nationwide.

At the end of the night, debate observers reported divided opinions about Harris: 45 percent said they viewed her favorably, 44 percent unfavorably. That's an improvement from before the debate, when 39 percent of the same voters said they viewed her favorably. Observers' views of Trump, meanwhile, have changed little – 39 percent rated him favorably after the debate and 51 percent unfavorably, similar to his ratings among the same voters before his appearance.

Among voters who watched the debate and identified themselves as politically independent, Harris' popularity rose to 48% after the debate, up from just 30% previously.

An equal number of viewers (54%) said they had at least some confidence in Harris' and Trump's respective abilities to lead the country. Thirty-six percent said they had a great deal of confidence in Trump and 32 percent said they had a great deal of confidence in Harris. In June, only 14 percent of those who watched the Trump-Biden presidential debate expressed a great deal of confidence in Biden's leadership abilities.

After the most recent debate, voters watching the show were split on which candidate better understands the problems facing people like them, with 44 percent saying Harris does better and 40 percent choosing Trump. That's a shift in Harris' favor compared to before the debate, when 43 percent said Trump understands their problems better while 39 percent did for Harris. But voters watching the show gave Trump a 20-point lead over Harris after the debate on how to handle the economy, 55 percent to 35 percent — a slightly larger lead than before the debate.

Debate observers also gave Trump a 23-point lead over Harris on whom they would trust to handle immigration and a 6-point lead on the role of commander in chief. They gave Harris a 9-point lead on protecting democracy and a 21-point lead on whom they would trust to handle the abortion issue.

An 82 percent majority of registered voters who watched Tuesday's debate said it had not affected their choice of president. Another 14 percent said they had reconsidered but not changed their decision, and 4 percent said they had changed their minds about who to vote for. Debate viewers who had supported Trump before Tuesday night were more likely to say they were undecided after the debate, 23 percent versus 12 percent, than those who supported Harris.

The CNN poll was distributed via text message to 605 registered U.S. voters who said they watched Tuesday's debate. The poll results are representative of the views of debate viewers only. Respondents were recruited to participate before the debate and selected via a survey of members of the SSRS Opinion Panel, a nationally representative panel recruited using probability-based sampling techniques. The results for the entire sample of debate viewers have a margin of error of plus or minus 5.3 percentage points.

CNN's Jennifer Agiesta contributed to this report.