Vice President Kamala Harris clearly defeated former President Donald Trump in Tuesday night’s debate, but didn’t get any bounce as a result, according to a new poll commissioned by The Post.
In the survey conducted by Leger, half of respondents who watched at least some portion of the ABC News debate said Harris was the winner, while 29% said Trump had gotten the better of the VP and 13% said neither candidate had won the showdown.
However, the poll also shows Trump gained one percentage point of support among likely voters from a pre-debate survey taken following the Democratic National Convention in late August, while Harris held steady.
Currently, Harris has the backing of 50% of likely voters, with Trump garnering 47% support. The remaining 3% said they would vote for someone else.
Notably, 60% of respondents who watched all or part of Tuesday’s debate described it as “good,” compared to just 42% who gave the same rating to the June 27 debate between Trump and President Biden.
Another 29% of debate viewers gave it a “bad” grade, compared to 49% who said the same of the Trump-Biden forum.
Catch up on The Post’s debate coverage
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- Read Trump’s and Harris’ closing statements from their first presidential debate
- Harris campaign calls for second debate after Trump’s performance is panned by critics
- Trump refers to Kamala Harris’ 2020 viral ‘I’m speaking’ moment in presidential debate: ‘Does that sound familiar?’
- Harris tries to pin Project 2025 on Trump during first minutes of presidential debate
- Trump claims Harris supports abortions in the ‘ninth month — and she doesn’t deny it during presidential debate’
- Everything to know about the Donald Trump-Kamala Harris presidential debate
Tuesday’s debate, held at the National Constitution Center in the City of Brotherly Love, drew more than 67.1 million viewers, according to preliminary data from Nielsen — up from the more than 51 million estimated to have watched the Trump-Biden showdown.
The 81-year-old commander-in-chief’s halting, confused performance at the June debate set in motion an internal revolt among Democrats that culminated in Biden ending his re-election bid July 21 and making way for Harris.
In a poll following that debate conducted for The Post, Leger found that Biden’s support among likely voters had dropped two percentage points from before the debate, while Trump had gained seven percentage points for a total swing of nine percentage points against the incumbent.
While just 40% of Democrats thought Biden had defeated Trump in the June debate, 62% of Republicans believed Trump bested Harris Tuesday night.
Wednesday’s Leger survey found that if Biden had remained in the race, he would be trailing Trump by eight percentage points among likely voters (46%-38%), with 9% saying they would vote for someone else and 6% saying they wouldn’t know who to support.
The Leger survey was conducted online Sept. 10-11 following the debate and surveyed 1,174 Americans who will vote or probably vote in the Nov. 5 election.
The poll has a margin of error of plus-or-minus 2.72 percentage points.
