What the Polls Are Saying After the Trump-Biden Debate

CBS poll shows limited movement, but new Trump lead

A CBS News/YouGov poll released on Wednesday showed a small but significant swing in voter sentiment since last week’s consequential debate. The poll shows that Donald Trump now leads President Biden by two points among likely voters nationally — 50 percent to 48 percent — and three points in the swing states likely to decide the election. Before the debate, Biden led among these voters by one point. When third-party candidates are included, Trump’s lead grows to four points, 44 percent to 40 percent, with Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. drawing 11 percent.

Beneath those topline numbers lurk all kinds of flashing red warning signs for Biden, as CBS reports:

Immediately following the debate, CBS News’ polling showed increasing numbers of voters believing Mr. Biden did not have the cognitive health for the job and that he should not be running. A large seven in 10 still say he should not be running. (It’s three points fewer now than immediately after the debate, perhaps because the Biden campaign pushed back on the idea, but remains the dominant view among voters, and of a sizable four-in-10 share of Democrats.)

And Democratic voters are now less likely to say they will “definitely” vote than Republican voters.

CNN Poll: 75 percent of voters think Democratic Party would have a better shot at the White House without Biden

The impact of last week’s debate seemed varied in a CNN poll released Tuesday. In a one-on-one matchup, Donald Trump is leading Joe Biden 49 percent to 43 percent, the same result as their April poll. The poll surveyed 1,274 adults including 1,045 registered voters from June 28 to June 30

The poll also looked at how other potential presidential replacements for Biden, including Vice President Kamala Harris, measured up against Trump. In one scenario, Harris received 45 percent to Trump’s 47 percent, a closer margin than her running mate:

Several other Democrats have been mentioned as potential Biden replacements in recent days, and each trails Trump among registered voters, with their levels of support similar to Biden’s, including California Gov. Gavin Newsom (48% Trump to 43% Newsom), Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg (47% Trump to 43% Buttigieg), and Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer (47% Trump to 42% Whitmer).

Voters seemed concerned about Biden’s potential impact on the Democratic Party winning the White House. 75 percent said they believed that the party had a better chance with someone else. Democratic voters only differed slightly:

However, most Democrats and Democratic-leaning registered voters (56%) say the party has a better shot at the presidency with someone other than Biden, while 43% say the party stands a better chance with him. Democratic confidence in Biden’s chances has not increased since he locked up the party’s nomination in the primaries: In January, 53% felt the party would have a better shot with someone other than Biden at the top of the ticket and 46% felt more confident with Biden.

Read the rest of the results here.

USA Today poll shows Trump with new lead

A USA Today poll released on Tuesday showed that post-debate, Donald Trump leads President Biden 41 percent to 38 percent, a three-point leap from the newspaper’s last poll, taken in May. Robert F. Kennedy Jr. maintains about 8 percent support, the same level he did in May. The paper specifies that its results, which come from 1,000 registered voters surveyed from Friday to Sunday, “still signal a close contest, not a decisive lead,” and that Trump’s edge is within the poll’s margin of error. But beyond the top-line number, other warning signs lurk for Biden. 41 percent of Democrats now want him replaced at the top of the ticket; there is a massive enthusiasm gap between Republicans and Democrats about their presidential candidates. And there’s been a change among voters’ second choices after Biden’s disastrous debate:

Trump now leads as the second choice of voters: 25% of those surveyed said Trump was their second choice, compared with 17% for Biden. Thirty-three percent said their second choice was one of four third-party contenders: independent Cornel West, Green Party candidate Jill Stein, Libertarian candidate Chase Oliver and RFK Jr.

“It is still a margin of error race right now, but the Biden campaign must be concerned about the defection of second-choice votes of third-party voters,” David Paleologos, director of the Suffolk Political Research Center, said. Some Democratic strategists had calculated those voters would drift back to Biden as Election Day neared.

Trump gains post-debate lead over Biden in Morning Consult poll

Per the latest weekly tracking data from Morning Consult, after surveying a representative sample of 10,679 registered voters between June 28 to 30, “Trump leads Biden by 1 percentage point, 44 percent to 43 percent, a marginal improvement for the presumptive Republican nominee compared to the lead-up to the first 2024 debate, when the candidates were tied.” In addition, per Morning Consult’s summary:

Fewer voters than ever see Biden as mentally fit: Our weekly tracking survey found that 37% of voters say Biden is mentally fit — down 6 percentage points from a survey conducted ahead of the debate. Among Democratic voters, 68% say Biden is mentally fit, down 9 points from before the debate. Both numbers are the lowest on record since Morning Consult began asking the question in 2020. Read more here.

Biden’s nightmare news cycle: Voters were 31 points more likely to report having seen, read or heard something negative than positive about Biden (55% to 24%) after Thursday’s debate. It’s Biden’s worst buzz rating since our 2024 tracking began in November 2022, usurping the previous nadir we gauged in January 2023 following the discovery of Obama-era classified documents in his possession. 

Read the rest of the results here.

USA Today–Suffolk poll suggests debate did significant damage to Biden’s standing among Democrats and independents

According to the results of USA Today–Suffolk’s national poll of 1,000 registered voters (conducted over the weekend), 41 percent of Democrats said Biden should be replaced as the party’s nominee, as did 37 percent of Democrats who said they still planned to vote for him following the debate. Fifty percent of respondents said Trump won the debate, while only 11 percent said Biden won, and, per USA Today’s summary, “when asked an open-ended question about why they thought one candidate or the other had prevailed, most cited either the strength or the weakness of their mental acuity.”

The poll measured a striking enthusiasm gap as well:

Republicans by 84% to 14% want Trump to remain the GOP’s nominee. What’s more, 59% of Republicans said the debate made them more likely to support him.

In contrast, a bare majority of Democrats want Biden to remain as their nominee, 51% to 41%. Among Democrats, just 24% said the debate made them more likely to support him. Nine percent said it made them more likely to back a third-party candidate.

And nearly two-thirds of independents said Biden needed to go:

Sixty-four percent want Biden replaced on the ballot, 63% want Trump replaced. When asked about the impact of the debate, 26% of independents said it made them more likely to support Trump, 9% Biden, and 17% said it made them more likely to vote for a third-party candidate. Another 8% said it made them less likely to vote at all.

Read the rest of the poll results at USA Today.

CBS News–YouGov poll registers spike in concern over Biden’s mental and cognitive health

In a new national CBS News–YouGov poll, conducted from June 28 to June 29 among 1,130 registered voters and released on Sunday, 72 percent of respondents said that Biden does not have the mental and cognitive health to serve as president, up from 65 percent on June 9. That includes 42 percent of registered Democrats, up from 29 percent on June 9.

Per the poll, 46 percent of registered Democrats said Biden should not be running for president, a ten-point increase since February, and 45 percent think Biden should now step aside — though CBS News points out that the poll indicates Democrats “are worried more about his ability to campaign than his decision-making as president.”

The poll also indicates that the debate is generating increased attention to the presidential race: 59 percent of respondents said they are now thinking a lot about it, up from 48 percent before the debate.

You can read the rest of the poll results at CBS News.

Democratic-leaners recoiled at Biden, per Democracy Corps–Greenberg Research–PSG Consulting

The results of Democracy Corps’s 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. 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’s 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 voters who 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 postdebate poll, released on 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 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.

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

The national postdebate 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 SurveyUSA’s summary, there were several data points that 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 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.

You can read the rest of the results at SurveyUSA.

FiveThirtyEight-Ipsos poll of debate-watchers found little impact on votes

The poll by FiveThirtyEight 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 there wasn’t much of an impact on their potential votes:

Turning 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.

FiveThirtyEight 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 FiveThirtyEight and Ipsos.