Politics

JUST IN: Top Poll Shows Huge Post-Debate Shift

Published

3 days ago

October 7, 2024

A national poll is showing the mood of the American electorate shifting dramatically following last week’s first and perhaps only vice-presidential debate.

The Yahoo News/YouGov poll indicates the presidential race has tightened following last week’s debate between Sen. J.D. Vance (R-OH) and Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz. Multiple post-debate panels of undecided voters suggested that Vance delivered a standout performance on the night while Walz was stilted and shaky as he stepped into the national spotlight for the first time. Since its last poll, Yahoo News/YouGov has seen the race between Harris and Trump tighten to just 2%: the Democrat now leads the Republican 48% to 46%.

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The survey of 1,714 registered voters was in the field from October 2nd to the 4th, and Harris’s problems only get worse when digging deeper into the crosstabs. When third-party candidates are included, Harris’s lead among independent voters shrinks to just 1%. When registered voters are filtered down to just those considered most likely to vote, Harris’s lead vanishes completely and the race is dead even at 47% apiece. The poll’s +/- 3% margin of error means all results fall within its range; Reuters notes the lead could be as much as 49% for Trump and 45% for Harris.

If further polling mirrors these results, it may confirm that a post-debate bump for Harris has since faded. Most observers believe the Democrat got under President Trump’s skin when she threw multiple barbs as when she accused him of focusing more on his debate crowd sizes than the number of illegal migrants crossing the border. Trump was quick to fire back that it was Harris as “border czar” who let the southern border fall into disarray.

In keeping with the presidential results, a “generic ballot” question asking voters if they plan to vote for Republicans or Democrats shows no sign of movement in Harris’s favor since the debate. The question typically favors Democrats by 3 to 4%, Reuters noted. But among viewers who tuned in to the Vance-Walz debate on CBS, 41% said they believed the Ohio Republican won the night while just 32% said the same for the Minnesota Democrat. The number of Americans who now believe Vance is prepared to serve as vice president has risen to 37%, up from 30% in late August.

President Trump continues to hammer Vice President Harris as he works to tie her to the deeply unpopular President Joe Biden. He returned to Wisconsin on Sunday, speaking for nearly two hours alongside a number of state and local Republicans who stayed on his MAGA message for most of the afternoon, according to the New York Times. Dale J. Schmidt, the sheriff of Dodge County, drew applause from the crowd when he stated that there were no ballot drop boxes throughout the county. Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI), one of the former president’s closest allies on Capitol Hill, thanked him for forging an alliance with Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. and suggested both were being undermined by the government.