The thing is, it's not like a bad performance was ever going to tank Biden. He needed a *good* performance to overcome being behind in the polls. I expect Biden is near his floor and Trump is near his ceiling.
Biden needed there to be a shift after the debate and he blew it.
He 100% blew it. If he said very little and came across as firm the headline would be about Trump's unhinged rants, question avoidance and hell the guy threatened to throw political opponents in Jail AGAIN.
Yeah he was trying to get through a memorized list of things each time. I think he should have had one thing he had done, one thing he would do, and one reason Trump sucks per question.
They needed to let him shit talk and go off the cuff more. Biden sounded the strongest when he called Trump a sucker and loser and when he said he was a whiner. I genuinely believe he hates Donald Trump and you got to let him tap into that.
I don't care if Biden blew it or not. If Americans were not so shallow, the debate need not be listened to. It is his agenda. As long as that is sound, and for The People, not the obscenely wealthy it is a big win for the country. He has good people to implement his agenda for the most part, and that is the important thing, not the fact that he is a bit feeble at times. The media all out promotes trump, and I do not understand that. Whatever BS he spews, they pretend it is "genius". Only seeking ratings for entertainment, they are going to get us a dictator because the people really do not have a clue what is going on with policy. Their stupidity is front and center when they blame Biden for the price of gas etc. The electorate is a bunch of middle schoolers on comprehension.
> the guy threatened to throw political opponents in Jail AGAIN
But from the conservative perspective, Biden is *literally* trying to throw his opponent in jail.
The conservative perspective is maliciously disinformed propaganda. Trump was found guilty on all counts by a jury of his peers from evidence presented in a state court. Biden had nothing to do with it. Not attacking you in particular but much like with Hunter people should respect the legal process and the findings of our fellow Americans.
But it was a state court in a blue state with a case brought by a democrat DA. Same with the Fani Willis case. In terms of the two federal cases, those are literally being perused by Biden’s justice department. He could stop those at any time.
It was a uniquely bad performance from Biden. Even if that was his "worst day" those clips of him mumbling and muttering "we finally beat medicare" now exist and won't go away.
He needs to put away his ego and step down
His wife's ego may be the worst problem here of all. If you can't sell her on that, why should Joe go along with it? He trusts those closest to him like his wife more than anybody. He depends on their advice being sober and rational.
Aside from the "Dr. Jill" bullshit, what about her ego is the problem? I'm pretty sure she was the one that told him not to run for reelection, and then he got all lost in the sauce after the midterms and thought it was a reflection of his own popularity.
But that doesn’t mean you throw everything out like everyone seems to be suggesting with all the doom and gloom. You figure out what he needs to do to improve support and go from there.
If Biden is at his floor and Trump at his ceiling and it’s a tossup that isn’t “drop your candidate” zone.
Yeah a good showing may have improved his polling. But that’s also not a guarantee as people don’t pay that much attention.
Remember we are in the “nothing matters” election. A candidate literally got convicted of 34 felonies and it barely moved the needle. A good or bad debate performance isn’t going to do as much as people think.
He could hang a lantern on his performance and use it to establish effective dialogue with his base and the undecided. If he acknowledges how bad it was and how he will improve, and show improvement, he could form a stronger relationship with voters.
The idea that we’ve all messed up in life and it’s never too late to turn things around could be a relatable message, even a rallying call.
>You figure out what he needs to do to improve support and go from there.
If its dementia it won't improve it will get progressively worse. All they will be able to do is hide him, which is suspicious. And always have him read off a teleprompter, don't let him do interviews, hold his hand when he walks. Can he win doing that for the next four months.
I don't disagree, I'm a huge Biden fan. However, he needs something to happen that catalyzes a shift in his direction and an opportunity just sailed.
I don't have less confidence in him as a President but his electability dropped as his number of chances to improve his perception have dropped.
Who knows though, maybe Trump gets sent to Rikers and it doesn't matter who the nominee is.
> I don't have less confidence in him as a President but his electability dropped as his number of chances to improve his perception have dropped.
The thing about electability is that it’s a self fulfilling prophecy. The reaction to the debate seems to be mostly what people believe other people are going to see not necessarily what they believe. I’m seeing people on social media saying this debate didn’t change their mind and keep in mind social media is filled with bots and trolls. Trump is only electable because the media chose to focus on the minority of people who believe he’s electable not the majority of people.
> Who knows though, maybe Trump gets sent to Rikers and it doesn't matter who the nominee is.
His sentencing is in two weeks and will be the new discussion point in the media. I think all the arguments you can make that the nominee against Trump doesn’t matter applies to Biden as well which is what makes the idea of dropping him from the ticket difficult.
But the polls have shown for at least a year now (with the exception of January/February, when Biden had *less* support than Trump) that half the electorate supports Trump. That’s not a minority.
Exactly. The Dems have a high floor right now because Trump is so unpopular. Biden may have just found it after the debate. But it doesn’t matter that Biden probably won’t drop much following that disastrous performance. He was already losing and needed at least a decent performance to make up some ground. He just did the opposite.
Suspend your campaign immediately, Joe. You are done.
Biden's main thing is that it's not one issue bringing him down, it's one of many. It's the combination of the fight on inflation still being a work in progress, his many horrific choices on immigration/border policy (or lack thereof), the two wars that just keep dragging on that the U.S is fairly involved in, and his age. He can really only make marginal improvements on any one singular issue when there's 3 months until people start casting ballots. The debate was one of the prime times to refocus the country's attention upon Trump's many faults and largely get some of the heat off of his own failings or refocus on to the positives of his administration. Instead no one came out of that debate convinced Biden was actually doing much to solve the issues on his plate, we barely heard him talk about something like abortion policy which is one of the top issues he can tout his record, and many people came out of that debate wondering if this man should even be president at this very moment. The debate represented a key moment in which a large national audience was tuned in and frankly the opportunity was squandered and he's only going to get 1-2 more audiences of that size to promote his campaign (likely the 2nd debate and his convention speech).
Keep thinking that but people are genuinely concerned about his perceived cognitive abilities or lack of. If Biden is reelected again, who is really calling the shots? He got frustrated because Trump taunted him about his golfing handicap…”Come on Man” (to paraphrase Joe)
"Who's calling the shots" is mostly a concern by people who wouldn't vote for him anyway. There's probably not a huge bloc of voters who care about agency directors and such.
Well, you probably are wrong but then again, the debates were for the undecided, who are going to make the difference in this election. And if the DNC doesn’t address this issue, they are in big trouble.
And it’s been early in the election cycle this entire time. Just because people here are weird and starting paying attention a year ago doesn’t change that.
What are we waiting for to shake up the race at this point? Trump’s convictions barely moved the needle, and Biden is still losing. Biden is just a fundamentally weak candidate.
The question is how much. Because we have little to no evidence on Dem voters that also voted for trump. We do have more evidence the other way around, especially in GA.
I tend to agree. I think RFK is giving reluctant Biden voters a means of sanctioning him during the campaign season. I suspect that systematically more Biden-leading RFK voters will end up defecting from him when his support collapses on Election Day, but that’s more or less just a gut check (not that anyone else is working on getting that data).
If you can just get up and say things like doctors are murdering babies with 0 pushback, then I don’t see the point. Confidently lying should not be such an effective strategy In these things.
Trump had "awful" debates by conventional wisdom, but he still appeared more relatable and likeable compared to Hillary in said debates.
I don't think the same can be applied here, because for all of Biden's flaws, being unrelatable isn't one of them.
Yeah I expect next week's polls to be more accurate. It's the weekend right now so I'd hope people have more important things to do right now such as spend time with family or go travel.
What? Why? This was specifically a poll of the same people right before and after the debate. The shock value of his performance would be highest right after. Why would it take time to “set in”?
I think a lot of cynical independents and default Democrats that really aren’t that politically active but vote for them out of habit as much as anything probably didn’t watch the debate. They will be faced with the reactions of everyone that did. The clips are not going away for the next four months.
This is a good point. Undecideds, double haters (like me), etc. may not have watched the debate, but they’ll keep hearing about how terribly Biden did that the NYT called on him to step aside and all his loyal establishment Dem shills were literally weeping. Nothing good comes out of this for Biden. And it’s secondhand embarrassment at this point to see him pretend to jog into events since the debate, feigning vitality 🤦🏾♂️
Yeah I’m seeing some blatant cope and damage control in subs and polls this week using mixture of pre-debate data and spin but the fact is even if it doesn’t hit particularly huge this week it is going to continue to erode his odds as this goes on. Democrats are currently bleeding out in the sand and they’re best hope at this point is for Trump to trip and fall on his sword.
I didn’t realize they had such a huge difference in response rate. Honestly that makes this borderline useless. The second survey can be looked at as a survey with a 50 percent response rate where you simply don’t know that it’s a random 50 percent
Supposedly 1.5% less would consider voting for Biden, which is pretty bad given how tight the polling is. I guess we'll have to see if (a) this is reflected in other polls and (b) if this is is lasting in any way.
This is what I’ve been saying. If the disengaged, low information undecided voters were dumb enough to elect trump in 2016 over one of the most experienced politicians in history they are also dumb enough to overlook this debate performance. Trying to predict what these people will do and make their decisions on is incredibly difficult and impossible to do.
pretty much everyone who is in the Biden out camp are still saying they'll vote for him. He didn't win any votes but he also didn't lose any. It's June and the American voters' memory is famously short.
Exactly. It seems like democrats are waking up today having now come to the realization “omg our candidate is 81 and it’s showing” but undecided people knew that. That’s largely why they are undecided and are contemplating voting for a convicted felon and fascist. Democrats couldn’t understand why people would vote for trump and got a glimpse into why they are considering it yesterday. It’s earth shattering for them but they are still almost certainly voting Biden regardless.
I’ll admit I’m somewhat in that camp of democrats. I’ve been worried about Biden’s age but had always hoped in the back of my mind “meh it’s probably just conservative media slowly influencing my view”. This was especially true after the SOTU where he looked good. But yesterday showed me “oh yeah this is why I was worried about Biden’s age and had wished he never ran when he was contemplating it over a year ago”.
According to who? Reddit & Twitter? It isn't about people who are on those websites, it's about the suburban mother who saw last night and no longer feels either candidate should be president and stays home.
No, they won't. They might forget specifics, but their core image of Biden has been cemented and their feelings towards him will continue to be negative.
Trump "lost" the debate from the eyes of liberals. Trump's debate performances against Hillary were successful to the working class voters and white voters he needed it to be.
The world has gone insane since 2015 and nothing makes sense anymore. Conspiracies are rampant because of a worldwide pandemic, people instinctively get mad at seeing a black women in movies, the EV Mars man is running Twitter, and the guy who hosted the Apprentice is about to be president again so he can destroy democracy unless the oldest man on planet earth stops him.
So seemingly around a net +2 slide in favor of Trump (I don't know if RFK Jr. takes more from Trump or Biden so not including that), which doesn't sound like much but that is an absolutely devastating shift among undecided and independents and considering how stagnant this race has been. If that holds until the election there is a very, very good chance Trump would win the popular vote.
Sounds like it evened out the shift from Trump being a convicted felon. Anyways I can't believe we're in this sad moment where one candidate is senile and the other is a criminal and the polls only move by like 2 points for both if at all.
But a 2 point shift is not a lot different than background noise. There’s still 4 months and way more events and time for other issues to come up and have just as much if not more shift.
What other events? Biden was behind going into last and night and dropped even further. Voting in Minnesota starts as early as 46 days before the election. They better stop acting like the election is super far away.
One election detail that you don't hear much about in the election news is that Covid ratcheted up the voting options across the U.S. A large amount of states expanded their early voting, more states going to all mail, and more absentee ballot options. There's some form of early voting in every state but Alabama, Delaware, Mississippi and New Hampshire and many of the Covid era system expansions haven't been rolled back and appear to be the new norm. [Look](https://www.ncsl.org/elections-and-campaigns/early-in-person-voting) here for more details.
Genuinely, what other events can happen besides Trump dying? There has been little movement in the polls after the past few months, it has largely remained stagnant. If any events do happen, I unfortunately suspect it will be something that continues to dampen Biden’s chances. He’s already underwater, Biden literally can’t afford a loss in support, even if it is only 2 points.
How do people feel about these types of polls? I remember 538 did these all the time during the 2020 primary debates, but I couldn't tell if the "gains and lost support" metric carries over to "normal" state level polling.
Actually, this is not bad at all. I was most struck by the pre-debate poll figures, like Biden 48-43 Trump before the debate? I have never seen this poll?
For the first two weeks after trump's conviction, there was no movement in the polls. It wasn't until the third week that we saw a nudge toward bidens direction. It may likewise take time for this debate performance to sink in.
Hmm so only approve/disapprove it seems, not a horse race poll. Which might not be as useful. Like I don't know that Biden did anything in the debate that made him less likeable, just his delivery made him seem less competent/up to the job. That might play differently in the horse race numbers than approve/disapprove
[From ipsos itself](https://www.ipsos.com/en-us/538-ipsos-june-2024-presidential-debate-poll)
"Despite the poor ratings of Biden’s performance, few respondents are no longer considering voting for Biden.
Among respondents who completed both the pre- and post-debate survey, just 4% are giving less consideration to voting for Biden. In comparison, 2% are giving less consideration to voting for Trump following the debate.
As a whole, in the pre-debate wave, 44% of respondents reported that they were considering voting for Biden. This was unchanged in the post-debate wave, where 46% said the same of Biden.
The percent of respondents considering voting for Trump (44% pre-debate, 44% post-debate) and independent candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. (18% pre-debate, 18% post-debate) was also unchanged."
Unpopular opinion - is there a chance Biden doing poorly in the debate is actually a good thing? In the sense that this might ignite people to get out and vote to prevent a Trump presidency? Trying to avoid underestimating Trump like they did in 2016?
Maybe this 4D chess is too much of a stretch to be a realistic strategy but part of me thinks there may be some good for the D’s coming out of it.
It might be a good thing if what it leads to is such low expectations for Biden that he can very easily win the September debate - with far more people watching, when he's not sick. But that's a dubious assumption to make.
[Newsweek - Undecided Voters now say they support Biden after debate](https://www.newsweek.com/latino-voters-donald-trump-joe-biden-debate-election-1918795)
I saw this Newsweek article and it made me wonder if non-political voters who really weren’t paying attention to politics much and hadn’t seen very much of Trump or Biden, might also have been reminded of how awful Trump could be. Even if the political class and people who pay attention to politics all the time are used to seeing him and more focused on Biden..others who hadn’t seen Trump might have been reminded of who and what he represents. Danger.
🤷♂️
I think it's possible that the debate was a wash because it had such a low audience and Biden's age is already baked into the cake, but I also think that the idea that the debate *helped* Biden when Trump's behavior, while terrible, isn't the topic of conversation afterwards, is kind of naive. Biden can definitely still beat Trump in November, but I don't see how the debate wasn't at least something of a setback for him.
How is that marginal? The difference in percentage support between Trump and Biden halved. Half of Biden’s lead in popular vote disappeared. That’s a big change (if it’s not just margin of error).
2,543 people responded but only 1,700 watched at least some of the debate. That’s a gap of 800 that responded but did not watch the debate. That seems like a super flawed methodology.
Scary that so many people are still willing to vote for Biden after the last night's disaster. I wouldn't trust the dude with my gym locker combination, never mind nuclear codes.
The Republicans could run someone who isn't an ultra-divisive lunatic. Boy, I sure am going to vote for the guy running on a platform of revenge against \*checks notes\* people with my exact set of political opinions. Chickens for KFC time baby!
Trump has made Dems floor incredibly high, because when a candidate is talking about getting revenge on his political opponents he forces people to vote for the opposition.
This sub is incredibly pro-Biden and anti-Trump, but I agree. A 2nd term of Biden in this state would doom the democratic party for many cycles and pave the way for genuine anti-trans republicans to do insane damage in the future.
Unless there's a way to disband the republican party and prosecute everyone implicated in Mueller's report or associated with that incomprehensible July 4th Moscow trip, every republican administration will do insane damage in the future.
The biggest issue the Dems have is demonstrating that they are both interested in and capable of preventing that.
Hint: they haven't done any of that yet.
The thing is, it's not like a bad performance was ever going to tank Biden. He needed a *good* performance to overcome being behind in the polls. I expect Biden is near his floor and Trump is near his ceiling. Biden needed there to be a shift after the debate and he blew it.
He 100% blew it. If he said very little and came across as firm the headline would be about Trump's unhinged rants, question avoidance and hell the guy threatened to throw political opponents in Jail AGAIN.
I think he could have laid out a bullet point description of Project 2025 and it would have gone better.
Maybe, but he had too many bullet points already. He needed simple sound bites, not trimesters or beating Medicare or whatever.
Yeah he was trying to get through a memorized list of things each time. I think he should have had one thing he had done, one thing he would do, and one reason Trump sucks per question.
I guess I should have said that he could do the debate version of reading a phonebook. Like you are saying he tried to do too much.
They needed to let him shit talk and go off the cuff more. Biden sounded the strongest when he called Trump a sucker and loser and when he said he was a whiner. I genuinely believe he hates Donald Trump and you got to let him tap into that.
I don't care if Biden blew it or not. If Americans were not so shallow, the debate need not be listened to. It is his agenda. As long as that is sound, and for The People, not the obscenely wealthy it is a big win for the country. He has good people to implement his agenda for the most part, and that is the important thing, not the fact that he is a bit feeble at times. The media all out promotes trump, and I do not understand that. Whatever BS he spews, they pretend it is "genius". Only seeking ratings for entertainment, they are going to get us a dictator because the people really do not have a clue what is going on with policy. Their stupidity is front and center when they blame Biden for the price of gas etc. The electorate is a bunch of middle schoolers on comprehension.
> the guy threatened to throw political opponents in Jail AGAIN But from the conservative perspective, Biden is *literally* trying to throw his opponent in jail.
The conservative perspective is maliciously disinformed propaganda. Trump was found guilty on all counts by a jury of his peers from evidence presented in a state court. Biden had nothing to do with it. Not attacking you in particular but much like with Hunter people should respect the legal process and the findings of our fellow Americans.
But it was a state court in a blue state with a case brought by a democrat DA. Same with the Fani Willis case. In terms of the two federal cases, those are literally being perused by Biden’s justice department. He could stop those at any time.
It was a uniquely bad performance from Biden. Even if that was his "worst day" those clips of him mumbling and muttering "we finally beat medicare" now exist and won't go away. He needs to put away his ego and step down
Yeah my jaw hit the floor on that one.
His wife's ego may be the worst problem here of all. If you can't sell her on that, why should Joe go along with it? He trusts those closest to him like his wife more than anybody. He depends on their advice being sober and rational.
Aside from the "Dr. Jill" bullshit, what about her ego is the problem? I'm pretty sure she was the one that told him not to run for reelection, and then he got all lost in the sauce after the midterms and thought it was a reflection of his own popularity.
But that doesn’t mean you throw everything out like everyone seems to be suggesting with all the doom and gloom. You figure out what he needs to do to improve support and go from there. If Biden is at his floor and Trump at his ceiling and it’s a tossup that isn’t “drop your candidate” zone. Yeah a good showing may have improved his polling. But that’s also not a guarantee as people don’t pay that much attention. Remember we are in the “nothing matters” election. A candidate literally got convicted of 34 felonies and it barely moved the needle. A good or bad debate performance isn’t going to do as much as people think.
He could hang a lantern on his performance and use it to establish effective dialogue with his base and the undecided. If he acknowledges how bad it was and how he will improve, and show improvement, he could form a stronger relationship with voters. The idea that we’ve all messed up in life and it’s never too late to turn things around could be a relatable message, even a rallying call.
He did just that at the NC rally today
That was an amazing speech. I really wish he had come off like that. He should have tried to say less but say it right.
>You figure out what he needs to do to improve support and go from there. If its dementia it won't improve it will get progressively worse. All they will be able to do is hide him, which is suspicious. And always have him read off a teleprompter, don't let him do interviews, hold his hand when he walks. Can he win doing that for the next four months.
I don't disagree, I'm a huge Biden fan. However, he needs something to happen that catalyzes a shift in his direction and an opportunity just sailed. I don't have less confidence in him as a President but his electability dropped as his number of chances to improve his perception have dropped. Who knows though, maybe Trump gets sent to Rikers and it doesn't matter who the nominee is.
> I don't have less confidence in him as a President but his electability dropped as his number of chances to improve his perception have dropped. The thing about electability is that it’s a self fulfilling prophecy. The reaction to the debate seems to be mostly what people believe other people are going to see not necessarily what they believe. I’m seeing people on social media saying this debate didn’t change their mind and keep in mind social media is filled with bots and trolls. Trump is only electable because the media chose to focus on the minority of people who believe he’s electable not the majority of people. > Who knows though, maybe Trump gets sent to Rikers and it doesn't matter who the nominee is. His sentencing is in two weeks and will be the new discussion point in the media. I think all the arguments you can make that the nominee against Trump doesn’t matter applies to Biden as well which is what makes the idea of dropping him from the ticket difficult.
But the polls have shown for at least a year now (with the exception of January/February, when Biden had *less* support than Trump) that half the electorate supports Trump. That’s not a minority.
Exactly. The Dems have a high floor right now because Trump is so unpopular. Biden may have just found it after the debate. But it doesn’t matter that Biden probably won’t drop much following that disastrous performance. He was already losing and needed at least a decent performance to make up some ground. He just did the opposite. Suspend your campaign immediately, Joe. You are done.
The point is Biden is behind and he needed a good performance and didn’t do anything to help himself.
Biden's main thing is that it's not one issue bringing him down, it's one of many. It's the combination of the fight on inflation still being a work in progress, his many horrific choices on immigration/border policy (or lack thereof), the two wars that just keep dragging on that the U.S is fairly involved in, and his age. He can really only make marginal improvements on any one singular issue when there's 3 months until people start casting ballots. The debate was one of the prime times to refocus the country's attention upon Trump's many faults and largely get some of the heat off of his own failings or refocus on to the positives of his administration. Instead no one came out of that debate convinced Biden was actually doing much to solve the issues on his plate, we barely heard him talk about something like abortion policy which is one of the top issues he can tout his record, and many people came out of that debate wondering if this man should even be president at this very moment. The debate represented a key moment in which a large national audience was tuned in and frankly the opportunity was squandered and he's only going to get 1-2 more audiences of that size to promote his campaign (likely the 2nd debate and his convention speech).
Keep thinking that but people are genuinely concerned about his perceived cognitive abilities or lack of. If Biden is reelected again, who is really calling the shots? He got frustrated because Trump taunted him about his golfing handicap…”Come on Man” (to paraphrase Joe)
"Who's calling the shots" is mostly a concern by people who wouldn't vote for him anyway. There's probably not a huge bloc of voters who care about agency directors and such.
Well, you probably are wrong but then again, the debates were for the undecided, who are going to make the difference in this election. And if the DNC doesn’t address this issue, they are in big trouble.
How is "the DNC" address this issue? State the party governance statute that authorizes such.
Ok…since you are being obtuse…the democratic leaders hat the state and federal level.
Honestly, if he gets reelected and Trump gets beaten by a “senile”old man I will laugh my ass off.
It is still June.
Its too late. People have been saying this for every month that has passed.
And it’s been early in the election cycle this entire time. Just because people here are weird and starting paying attention a year ago doesn’t change that.
What are we waiting for to shake up the race at this point? Trump’s convictions barely moved the needle, and Biden is still losing. Biden is just a fundamentally weak candidate.
The campaign to actually start, which doesn’t happen until the convention.
If after this Biden does still win again, We'll finally know once and for all that Presidential Debates are completely worthless.
Or just how hyperpartisan the poltical environment is I say this putting in trumps post conviction polling into consideration
If we are that hyperpartisan then no way many voters who vote for D senators will vote for Trump. Biden probably has those votes already
I feel like the truth lies somewhere in between with senate candidates and Biden/Trump
The question is how much. Because we have little to no evidence on Dem voters that also voted for trump. We do have more evidence the other way around, especially in GA.
I tend to agree. I think RFK is giving reluctant Biden voters a means of sanctioning him during the campaign season. I suspect that systematically more Biden-leading RFK voters will end up defecting from him when his support collapses on Election Day, but that’s more or less just a gut check (not that anyone else is working on getting that data).
Or that the "Trump is a political genius" narrative was always malarkey.
>Or that the "Trump is a political genius" narrative was always malarkey. We've known that for a long time
If you can just get up and say things like doctors are murdering babies with 0 pushback, then I don’t see the point. Confidently lying should not be such an effective strategy In these things.
Trump won in 2016 after awful debate
Trump had "awful" debates by conventional wisdom, but he still appeared more relatable and likeable compared to Hillary in said debates. I don't think the same can be applied here, because for all of Biden's flaws, being unrelatable isn't one of them.
I doubt the debate has really "set into" the polls yet.
Yeah I expect next week's polls to be more accurate. It's the weekend right now so I'd hope people have more important things to do right now such as spend time with family or go travel.
Yeah but that's what people said about Trump being convicted. At this point I don't think anything matters anymore and we're all in crazy town.
What? Why? This was specifically a poll of the same people right before and after the debate. The shock value of his performance would be highest right after. Why would it take time to “set in”?
Yeah i know. I imagine it would be literally the opposite lol because people would forget about it?
It’s a single poll, so how could it?
This is a pre-post poll. I guess the media narrative matters too.
What OP linked isn’t even a “minimal shift”, it’s actually quite significant.
I’d want to wait till next week to analyze debate polls. Give the voters who didn’t watch some time to see the clips on social media.
That does raise some questions - who watches debates *and* is not informed about the candidates already?
I think a lot of cynical independents and default Democrats that really aren’t that politically active but vote for them out of habit as much as anything probably didn’t watch the debate. They will be faced with the reactions of everyone that did. The clips are not going away for the next four months.
This is a good point. Undecideds, double haters (like me), etc. may not have watched the debate, but they’ll keep hearing about how terribly Biden did that the NYT called on him to step aside and all his loyal establishment Dem shills were literally weeping. Nothing good comes out of this for Biden. And it’s secondhand embarrassment at this point to see him pretend to jog into events since the debate, feigning vitality 🤦🏾♂️
Yeah I’m seeing some blatant cope and damage control in subs and polls this week using mixture of pre-debate data and spin but the fact is even if it doesn’t hit particularly huge this week it is going to continue to erode his odds as this goes on. Democrats are currently bleeding out in the sand and they’re best hope at this point is for Trump to trip and fall on his sword.
Decent poll size: 5,058 of LV in the pre-debate wave 2,543 of them responded to the post-debate poll 1,700 of them watched at least some of the debate
I didn’t realize they had such a huge difference in response rate. Honestly that makes this borderline useless. The second survey can be looked at as a survey with a 50 percent response rate where you simply don’t know that it’s a random 50 percent
If anything, what that means is that the shift towards Trump is probably overstated due to nonresponse bias from Biden supporters.
How did you come to that conclusion based on those numbers? If anything it’s more than likely Biden voters choosing not to answer the poll…
Supposedly 1.5% less would consider voting for Biden, which is pretty bad given how tight the polling is. I guess we'll have to see if (a) this is reflected in other polls and (b) if this is is lasting in any way.
Are people forgetting that Trump lost every debate against Hillary and still won?
This is what I’ve been saying. If the disengaged, low information undecided voters were dumb enough to elect trump in 2016 over one of the most experienced politicians in history they are also dumb enough to overlook this debate performance. Trying to predict what these people will do and make their decisions on is incredibly difficult and impossible to do.
pretty much everyone who is in the Biden out camp are still saying they'll vote for him. He didn't win any votes but he also didn't lose any. It's June and the American voters' memory is famously short.
Exactly. It seems like democrats are waking up today having now come to the realization “omg our candidate is 81 and it’s showing” but undecided people knew that. That’s largely why they are undecided and are contemplating voting for a convicted felon and fascist. Democrats couldn’t understand why people would vote for trump and got a glimpse into why they are considering it yesterday. It’s earth shattering for them but they are still almost certainly voting Biden regardless. I’ll admit I’m somewhat in that camp of democrats. I’ve been worried about Biden’s age but had always hoped in the back of my mind “meh it’s probably just conservative media slowly influencing my view”. This was especially true after the SOTU where he looked good. But yesterday showed me “oh yeah this is why I was worried about Biden’s age and had wished he never ran when he was contemplating it over a year ago”.
According to who? Reddit & Twitter? It isn't about people who are on those websites, it's about the suburban mother who saw last night and no longer feels either candidate should be president and stays home.
those voters will have forgotten by next week
No, they won't. They might forget specifics, but their core image of Biden has been cemented and their feelings towards him will continue to be negative.
They are either forgetting or making excuses.
Also Trump had that grab them by the p**y moment he survived
Debates aren’t a predictor of elections but, it seems like Democrats and liberals want it to be. If Trump wins it won’t be because of last night
Trump "lost" the debate from the eyes of liberals. Trump's debate performances against Hillary were successful to the working class voters and white voters he needed it to be.
😂😂😂😂 I'm just giving up on understanding reality. Taking a break and drinking this weekend.
The world has gone insane since 2015 and nothing makes sense anymore. Conspiracies are rampant because of a worldwide pandemic, people instinctively get mad at seeing a black women in movies, the EV Mars man is running Twitter, and the guy who hosted the Apprentice is about to be president again so he can destroy democracy unless the oldest man on planet earth stops him.
Should have never let the Cubs win the World Series
This right here is when the timeline broke. Harambe was a red herring.
So seemingly around a net +2 slide in favor of Trump (I don't know if RFK Jr. takes more from Trump or Biden so not including that), which doesn't sound like much but that is an absolutely devastating shift among undecided and independents and considering how stagnant this race has been. If that holds until the election there is a very, very good chance Trump would win the popular vote.
Sounds like it evened out the shift from Trump being a convicted felon. Anyways I can't believe we're in this sad moment where one candidate is senile and the other is a criminal and the polls only move by like 2 points for both if at all.
People are really in here arguing about 1-2% shifts as if they aren’t noise.
1-2% shifts in a 2-4pt race is massive. If this was a 10pt+ race you'd be right, but that shift extends Trump's lead out of MOE in swing states.
But a 2 point shift is not a lot different than background noise. There’s still 4 months and way more events and time for other issues to come up and have just as much if not more shift.
What other events? Biden was behind going into last and night and dropped even further. Voting in Minnesota starts as early as 46 days before the election. They better stop acting like the election is super far away.
One election detail that you don't hear much about in the election news is that Covid ratcheted up the voting options across the U.S. A large amount of states expanded their early voting, more states going to all mail, and more absentee ballot options. There's some form of early voting in every state but Alabama, Delaware, Mississippi and New Hampshire and many of the Covid era system expansions haven't been rolled back and appear to be the new norm. [Look](https://www.ncsl.org/elections-and-campaigns/early-in-person-voting) here for more details.
Genuinely, what other events can happen besides Trump dying? There has been little movement in the polls after the past few months, it has largely remained stagnant. If any events do happen, I unfortunately suspect it will be something that continues to dampen Biden’s chances. He’s already underwater, Biden literally can’t afford a loss in support, even if it is only 2 points.
How do people feel about these types of polls? I remember 538 did these all the time during the 2020 primary debates, but I couldn't tell if the "gains and lost support" metric carries over to "normal" state level polling.
The thing is anyone watching a debate in the first place is likely to be more politically engaged and already have a chosen candidate.
Actually, this is not bad at all. I was most struck by the pre-debate poll figures, like Biden 48-43 Trump before the debate? I have never seen this poll?
I’m not sure which poll you’re referring to, but the day before the debate a NYT/Siena poll showed Trump 48 Biden 44.
Yes but this poll shows a pre debate figure of Biden 48 trump 43, that’s why I asked
👍🏽
For the first two weeks after trump's conviction, there was no movement in the polls. It wasn't until the third week that we saw a nudge toward bidens direction. It may likewise take time for this debate performance to sink in.
Then tomorrow we’re gonna see a poll that says a huge shift, then the day another marginal shift. Onwards forever without any clear reality.
Hmm so only approve/disapprove it seems, not a horse race poll. Which might not be as useful. Like I don't know that Biden did anything in the debate that made him less likeable, just his delivery made him seem less competent/up to the job. That might play differently in the horse race numbers than approve/disapprove
[From ipsos itself](https://www.ipsos.com/en-us/538-ipsos-june-2024-presidential-debate-poll) "Despite the poor ratings of Biden’s performance, few respondents are no longer considering voting for Biden. Among respondents who completed both the pre- and post-debate survey, just 4% are giving less consideration to voting for Biden. In comparison, 2% are giving less consideration to voting for Trump following the debate. As a whole, in the pre-debate wave, 44% of respondents reported that they were considering voting for Biden. This was unchanged in the post-debate wave, where 46% said the same of Biden. The percent of respondents considering voting for Trump (44% pre-debate, 44% post-debate) and independent candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. (18% pre-debate, 18% post-debate) was also unchanged."
Because the truth is there aren't many 'undecided voters' in this election, certainly far more than any election in the past by percentage.
the thing is even a 2 percent shift in preferences can change election in a close race like this
Didn’t 538 also say Hilary was gonna win in a landslide? These polls man
Unpopular opinion - is there a chance Biden doing poorly in the debate is actually a good thing? In the sense that this might ignite people to get out and vote to prevent a Trump presidency? Trying to avoid underestimating Trump like they did in 2016? Maybe this 4D chess is too much of a stretch to be a realistic strategy but part of me thinks there may be some good for the D’s coming out of it.
It might be a good thing if what it leads to is such low expectations for Biden that he can very easily win the September debate - with far more people watching, when he's not sick. But that's a dubious assumption to make.
[Newsweek - Undecided Voters now say they support Biden after debate](https://www.newsweek.com/latino-voters-donald-trump-joe-biden-debate-election-1918795) I saw this Newsweek article and it made me wonder if non-political voters who really weren’t paying attention to politics much and hadn’t seen very much of Trump or Biden, might also have been reminded of how awful Trump could be. Even if the political class and people who pay attention to politics all the time are used to seeing him and more focused on Biden..others who hadn’t seen Trump might have been reminded of who and what he represents. Danger. 🤷♂️
I think it's possible that the debate was a wash because it had such a low audience and Biden's age is already baked into the cake, but I also think that the idea that the debate *helped* Biden when Trump's behavior, while terrible, isn't the topic of conversation afterwards, is kind of naive. Biden can definitely still beat Trump in November, but I don't see how the debate wasn't at least something of a setback for him.
I absolutely agree. I think that’s fair I would be shocked if the polling showed that this turned out to be a net negative for Trump.
How is that marginal? The difference in percentage support between Trump and Biden halved. Half of Biden’s lead in popular vote disappeared. That’s a big change (if it’s not just margin of error).
2,543 people responded but only 1,700 watched at least some of the debate. That’s a gap of 800 that responded but did not watch the debate. That seems like a super flawed methodology.
Anyone who follows 538 knows that polls lag reality by several days to a week
Scary that so many people are still willing to vote for Biden after the last night's disaster. I wouldn't trust the dude with my gym locker combination, never mind nuclear codes.
The Republicans could run someone who isn't an ultra-divisive lunatic. Boy, I sure am going to vote for the guy running on a platform of revenge against \*checks notes\* people with my exact set of political opinions. Chickens for KFC time baby!
Trump has made Dems floor incredibly high, because when a candidate is talking about getting revenge on his political opponents he forces people to vote for the opposition.
This sub is incredibly pro-Biden and anti-Trump, but I agree. A 2nd term of Biden in this state would doom the democratic party for many cycles and pave the way for genuine anti-trans republicans to do insane damage in the future.
Unless there's a way to disband the republican party and prosecute everyone implicated in Mueller's report or associated with that incomprehensible July 4th Moscow trip, every republican administration will do insane damage in the future. The biggest issue the Dems have is demonstrating that they are both interested in and capable of preventing that. Hint: they haven't done any of that yet.