CNN Flash Poll: Majority of debate watchers say Harris outperformed Trump onstage

Registered voters who watched Tuesday’s presidential debate broadly agree that Kamala Harris outperformed Donald Trump, according to a CNN poll of debate watchers conducted by SSRS. The vice president also outpaced both debate watchers’ expectations for her and Joe Biden’s onstage performance against the former president earlier this year, the poll found.

Debate watchers said, 63% to 37%, that Harris turned in a better performance onstage in Philadelphia. Prior to the debate, the same voters were evenly split on which candidate would perform more strongly, with 50% saying Harris would do so and 50% that Trump would. And afterward, 96% of Harris supporters who tuned in said that their chosen candidate had done a better job, while a smaller 69% majority of Trump’s supporters credited him with having a better night.

Voters who watched the debate also left with improved views of Harris compared with their impressions pre-debate, while few changed their opinions of Trump overall. Their views of each candidate’s strengths on the issues continued to reflect the dynamics seen in national polling, with Trump holding an advantage on the economy, immigration and being commander in chief, and Harris more trusted on abortion and protecting democracy.

The vast majority who tuned in said it had no effect on their presidential decision, although among the debate watchers, Trump supporters were more likely than Harris supporters to say the event gave them reason to reconsider.

The results of the flash poll mark a shift from the reaction to the June presidential debate, when voters who watched the matchup between Trump and Biden said, 67% to 33%, that Trump outperformed his Democratic rival. That June debate was a rare presidential debate win for Trump: In 2020 and 2016, Biden and Hillary Clinton were seen by debate watchers as outperforming him across the presidential debates.

The poll’s results reflect opinions of the debate only among those voters who tuned in and aren’t representative of the views of the full voting public. Debate watchers in the poll were 6 points likelier to be Republican-aligned than Democratic-aligned, making for an audience that was about 4 percentage points more GOP-leaning than all registered voters nationally.

At the end of the night, debate watchers reported split opinions of Harris: 45% said they view her favorably, and 44% unfavorably. That’s an improvement from before the debate, when 39% of the same voters said they viewed her favorably. Debate watchers’ views of Trump, meanwhile, shifted little – 39% rated him favorably and 51% unfavorably following the debate, similar to his numbers among the same voters before he took the stage.

Among voters who watched the debate and identify as political independents, Harris’ favorability rose to 48% after the debate, up from just 30% before.

Identical shares of debate watchers, 54%, said that they had at least some confidence in Harris’ and Trump’s respective abilities to lead the country, with 36% saying they had a lot of confidence in Trump and 32% that they had a lot of confidence in Harris. In June, just 14% who tuned in for the presidential debate between Trump and Biden expressed a lot of confidence in Biden’s ability to lead.

Following the latest debate, voters who tuned in were closely divided over which candidate better understands the problems facing people like them, with 44% saying Harris does and 40% picking Trump. That marks a shift in Harris’ favor from prior to the debate, when 43% said Trump had a better understanding of their problems while 39% said Harris did. But voters who tuned in gave Trump a 20-point advantage over Harris after the debate on handling the economy, 55% to 35% – a margin that’s slightly wider than his pre-debate edge.

Debate watchers also gave Trump a 23-point advantage over Harris when it came to whom they trusted to handle immigration and a 6-point edge on handling the role of commander in chief. But they gave Harris a 9-point advantage on protecting democracy and a 21-point advantage on whom they trusted to handle the issue of abortion.

An 82% majority of registered voters who watched Tuesday’s debate say it didn’t affect their choice for president. Another 14% said it made them reconsider but didn’t change their minds, with 4% saying it changed their minds about whom to vote for. Debate watchers who supported Trump prior to Tuesday night were more likely than those who supported Harris to say they were wavering following the debate, 23% to 12%.

The CNN poll was conducted by text message with 605 registered US voters who said they watched the debate Tuesday, and the poll findings are representative of the views of debate watchers only. Respondents were recruited to participate before the debate and were selected via a survey of members of the SSRS Opinion Panel, a nationally representative panel recruited using probability-based sampling techniques. Results for the full sample of debate watchers have a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 5.3 percentage points.

CNN’s Jennifer Agiesta contributed to this report.