Former President Donald Trump was viewed as the winner of the presidential debate Thursday night, according to a CNN poll of debate watchers.
The poll was conducted by SSRS.
Participants, made up of registered voters, said President Joe Biden’s poor performance has led them to doubt Biden’s ability to lead the country, per CNN.
However, they also say the debate has had little effect on who they will for president.
Voters, 67% to 33%, say Trump performed better.
Before the debate, those same voters, 55% to 45%, said they expected that to be the case.
The opposite was true in 2020 when Biden was thought to outperform Trump in their presidential debates.
A majority of 57% the watchers said they do not have confidence in Biden to lead the country.
Meanwhile, 44% have no real confidence in Trump’s ability.
“Those numbers are effectively unchanged from the poll taken prior to the debate, in which 55% of those voters said they had no confidence in Biden, and 47% that they lacked confidence in Trump,” per CNN.
At 85%, Republican debate watchers viewed Trump was doing more than Biden to address concerns about his ability to be president.
However, only 53% of Democrats feel Biden did a better job at addressing those concerns.
Twenty-seven percent said neither candidate lessened concerns about their abilities.
The results of the poll
aren’t representative of the views of the entire voting population.
The Debate watchers who participated “were 5 points likelier to be Republican-aligned than Democratic-aligned, making for an audience that was slightly more GOP-leaning than all registered voters nationally,” per CNN.
A majority of participants— 81% — said the debate did not affect their choice for president.
There were 14% who said they thought of reconsidering, but the debate didn’t change their mind.
Only 5% said it changed their minds.
Regarding Biden and Trump supporters, about 3% each, said the debate had changed their mind.
“Among debate watchers overall, 48% say they’d only consider voting for Trump, 40% that they’d only consider voting for Biden, 2% that they’re considering both candidates, and 11% that they aren’t considering voting for either,” per CNN.
