This is amazing if more polls show the same:
Remember, this is only one poll — we’ll need to see other surveys to be sure we know how the debates affected voters — but Harris’s second-night performance doubled her support; she went from just under 8 percent before Night 1 to almost 17 percent percent now. Much of that support came from voters who previously said they were backing Warren or Joe Biden. Speaking of Biden: He lost a bunch of voters — mostly to Harris, but also to Warren, Buttigieg and others.
Each candidate ranks as follows, with pre-debate numbers first, post-first debate, post-second debate:
Biden: 41.5 / 35.4 / 31.5 (-10)
Warren: 12.6 / 18 / 14.4 (+1.8)
Sanders: 14.4 / 16.4 / 17.3 (+2.9)
Buttigieg: 6.7 / 4.4 / 4.8 (-1.9)
Harris: 7.9 / 6.3 / 16.6 (+8.7)
So, again, it’s only one poll, but if this is accurate, Harris doubled her support after the debate while Biden lost 10 points. Warren gained from her performance but it fell slightly after voters watched the second debate. Buttigieg ended up losing points, which is not what I would have expected.
Now, let’s look at favorables:
Biden and Sanders didn’t move the needle much, which is expected considering they are the most well-known with not a lot of room to make an impression on anyone.
Warren’s numbers are remarkable because she’s the only candidate who saw her unfavorable number drop. Her favorables also went up 8 points.
O’Rourke arguably fared the worst in favorable/unfavorable ratings. He gained two points in the favorable rating but also picked up almost 7 points in unfavorable. That’s an almost five point drop- not the direction any candidate wants to go.
Harris and Buttigieg both gained about ten points in favorability, which is great, but Buttigieg’s unfavorables also increased by four. Still a net 6 points, but his numbers overall suggest he might have plateaued.
The good news for everyone is that with the exception of Beto and Biden (I’m not including the fringe candidates), everyone saw an overall increase in favorability. The net numbers are as follows:
Warren: +9
Booker: +8
Klobuchar: +4.5
Castro: +16
Sanders: +2
Harris: +9
Buttigieg: +5.5
Gillibrand: +2.5
Biden: -4
O’Rourke: -4.5
Castro had an enormous bump in favorability, but only gained one point in voting preference. All credit to him, but he’s an ideal VP pick rather than a presidential one. If he’s able to hold his favorables throughout the race I do think he’d be a great compliment to any candidate we nominate.
We have a long way to go and a lot of things can and will happen between now and the end of the year, but as things have stood for a while now, we have a five person race, not a 20+ person race. That doesn’t mean that no one likes the rest of the field, just that in a field this large most candidates will necessarily fall to the wayside.
Again, this is only one poll so I don’t want to get too carried away with it, but it is great data to chew on while we wait for more post-debate polls to drop.
Hat tip to joedemocrat for bringing this to my attention, and fcvaguy had an earlier diary about the same poll.