A new ABC poll finds that voters are not likely to support Kamala Harris even if they think she won last week's debate.
of Latest ABC News/Ipsos PollIn a poll conducted after the September 10 television showdown between the Democratic presidential candidate and Republican Donald Trump, 58% of respondents said that Harris beat Trump in the face-off, while 36% said that former President Harris was the winner.
But polls show Harris leading among likely voters by 52% to 46%. Back on the block in August.
The new poll showed little change when considering all respondents, with Harris, 59, leading 51% to 46%, up from 50% to 46% in August, and among registered voters only, Harris had 51% to Trump, 78, on 47%, up from 50% to 46% in August.
The debate, hosted by ABC News, was a stark reversal for Trump from his June spat with 81-year-old President Biden, who was seen to win 66% to 28% of the vote, and who ultimately dropped out of the race after a disastrous performance.
A partisan breakdown of last week's debate found that 95% of Democrats thought Harris had won, while 75% of Republicans said the same about Trump.
78% of Trump's supporters deemed him the winner, while 97% of Harris' supporters deemed her the winner.
69% of Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents claimed the debate made their view of Harris more positive, while 34% of Republicans and Republican-leaning independents said the same about Trump's performance.
During the argument, Ms Harris got on Mr Trump's nerves, trying to provoke him by criticising the size of the crowd and the charges he faced.
Trump and his supporters then slammed ABC News, accusing the debate moderators of stepping in and fact-checking Trump but not Harris.
The 45th president declared himself the winner of the September 10 debate and vowed not to hold another one, and also highlighted polls that show him as the winner of the debate.
“When a professional boxer loses a fight, the first words out of his mouth are, 'I want a rematch,'” Trump blasted on Truth Social last week, before declaring “there will be no third debate.”
There is one more major political debate scheduled this election cycle: a CBS News-moderated showdown between Republican vice presidential nominee J.D. Vance and Democratic vice presidential nominee Tim Walz on October 1.
So Latest RealClearPolitics Polls together show Harris leading Trump in a multi-candidate race by 1.9 percentage points, while candidates Chase Oliver, Jill Stein and Cornel West each have less than 1 percent support.
In another likely big development on debate night, after the debate, pop star Taylor Swift fulfilled Harris supporters' wildest dreams by endorsing her as a running mate.
But most voters appear to have shaken off Swift's support, with just 6% saying Swift's endorsement made them more likely to support Harris in the election, 13% saying it made them less likely, and 81% saying it made no difference.
Like other polls, the latest survey finds Harris leading by nine points among female voters, 55% to 44%, while the two are neck and neck among male voters, at 49% each.
Black voters chose Harris over Trump by 89% to 9%, as did Hispanic voters, 58% to 41%, and young voters aged 18 to 29, 59% to 40%.
The numbers suggest Trump is enjoying stronger support than usual among Hispanic voters, whom he defeated by Hillary Clinton by 40 points in 2016 and beat President Biden by 33 points in 2020.
On those issues, Trump had roughly a 7-point lead on the economy and inflation, and a 10-point lead on immigration, while Harris had a 7-point lead on protecting democracy, a 9-point lead on health care, and a 14-point lead on abortion.
The ABC News/Ipsos poll was conducted Sept. 11-13 among 3,276 adults and 2,196 voters evenly split between Democrats, Republicans and Independents, with a margin of error of plus or minus 2 percentage points for each group.
Surprisingly, Des Moines Register/MediaCom Iowa Poll Sunday's drop in approval ratings saw Harris cut Trump's lead in the Hawkeye State to just four percentage points, with 43 percent to the former president's 47 percent.
That's a dramatic change from June, when Trump beat Biden 50% to 32%. In the 2020 election, Trump beat Biden in Iowa by more than 8 points.
