It’s not just the pundits — even a majority of Democrats don’t think President Biden won Thursday’s debate, according to a new poll commissioned by The Post.
Respondents overwhelmingly said former President Donald Trump emerged victorious (49% to Biden’s 17%) — with the majority of Democrats also indicating that Biden didn’t win. Nine percent of the Dems polled said Trump scored over Biden, 45% said no one, and 6% didn’t know, according to polling conducted by Leger.
Only 40% of Democrats said Biden won, which pales in comparison to the 93% of Republicans who felt Trump won.
Ahead of debate night, Biden was up 45% to 43% among the subset of voters who said they plan on casting ballots in November’s election. After the match-up, Trump jumped up 50% to 42%.
When asked whether they watched the entire verbal bout, 37% of the respondents said yes, while 22% acknowledged they tuned in for some of it, 13% saw clips of it, and 28% didn’t see any of it.
Overall, a mere 42% of the sample that watched that debate described it as “good,” while 49% said it was “bad.”
Nearly 48 million people saw the 90-minute clash onstage in Atlanta, although that figure doesn’t account for those who may have watched it online, according to preliminary Nielsen data. The figure is down sharply from the 73 million, not counting online viewers, who watched Trump and Biden’s first debate in 2020.
Thursday night’s showdown was the earliest presidential debate of the modern era.
Biden’s team had pitched the CNN debate to Trump in May after months of the former president taunting the current commander in chief and champing at the bit for a face-off.
Afterward, a cacophony of Democrats erupted in panic over Biden’s freezing up onstage, struggles to answer questions coherently and mumbling.
The Post poll was taken online from June 27–28 and surveyed 1,001 voters. It featured a margin of error of plus or minus 3.09 points.
Biden’s team insists that he still plans to debate Trump on Sept. 10, a face-off is set to be hosted by CBS.
