Initial postdebate polls show Biden losing ground to Trump

The Hill ^ | 7/02/24 | Jared Gans

[Libloather]

Polling has started to come out following last week’s presidential debate between former President Trump and President Biden, showing some indications of Trump gaining in the aftermath.

Anticipation for the debate built up in advance for both candidates, but especially for Biden, who was hoping to use the night to overcome worries that he’s not up to the job of president for four more years. Instead, he at times stumbled over his words, struggled to make clear statements on policy positions and did not present significant energy that many Democrats wanted to see.

Although Trump made numerous false statements throughout the debate — significantly more than Biden — he came off as more competent and cognizant during the night, despite the candidates’ ages being similar.

Accordingly, polling respondents have mostly said Trump was the winner of the debate, and the former president has seen a subsequent rise in the polls. But it’s still less than a week after the debate, and the change has been more modest than some might expect.

“I don’t know how anyone looks at the debate performance in some of the after-reaction about who won the debate and says, ‘Hey, this is going to be helpful to the president’s numbers.’ I think the question is, you know, how hurtful will it be?” said Scott Tranter, the director of data science at Decision Desk HQ (DDHQ).

Biden was already trailing Trump a bit heading into the debate. Although the national polling had been a bit mixed with each candidate slightly ahead at times, the former president has mostly led the incumbent by at least a few points in the roughly half-dozen key battleground states that will likely decide the election.

[Libloather]

Hang in there Brandon.

[Ge0ffrey]

Biden made numerous false statements.

[Olog-hai]

Although Trump made numerous false statements throughout the debate …

Name a single one, Jared. Proof by assertion is a blatant logical fallacy.

Never mind claiming that Biden had any ground to lose is itself a false statement.

[janetjanet998]

Ashley Zavala

@ZavalaA

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BREAKING: Gov. Gavin Newsom is leaving California to head to the White House tomorrow to attend the governors meeting with President Biden, and “to stand with the President,” per his campaign spokesman.

[nwrep]

I agree. What they are calling “Trump’s lies” were exaggerations, not actual lies.

[SpaceBar]

Just a flesh wound.

[wildcard_redneck]

In your face Owen!

[Roadrunner383]

Saw a story on Yahoo about an internal Democratic post-dabate poll that has leaked. The poll showed Trump leading Biden by 5%-10% in PA-MI-WI and every other swing state. Also showed Trump basically tied with Biden in CO & NM.

Seems like the poll is a big reason Dems are talking about replacing Biden. The poll is from a firm that is tied to Dems, and is not one of the usual media sponsered polls.

[Henchster]

Although Trump made numerous false statements throughout the debate — significantly more than Biden...

Yeah, because "We finally beat Medicare" was 100% accurate. /s

[CFW]

Immediately after replacing Biden--and they have to go through both Jill and Hunter and several Biden-connected people to do that-- whoever they pick is going to immediately jump 20 points ahead of Trump in the polls. You can count on that. They have to come up with some scenario to justify the steal.

[bgill]

How does The Hill know Trump made more false statements when you couldn’t understand the mumbles?

[cgbg]

Good point.

Biden’s closing statement was totally incoherent.

I have absolutely no clue what he said.

[Political Junkie Too]

Name a single one

I'll list the "lies" that were alleged in the article's linked article, so others don't have to go there and read it:

1. his assertions that some Democratic-led states allow babies to be executed after birth
   • This is Trump's reference to Ralph Northam's comment about delivering a baby and then leaving it untreated until the mother decides what to do.

2. that every legal scholar and everybody in general wanted Roe v. Wade overturned
   • This is obviously a Trumpism. Nobody can claim "every" person is this or that, but it's not a lie in the common sense. There were plenty of people of all persuasions and status who have been advocating for the overturning of Roe v Wade for decades.

3. there were no terror attacks during his presidency
   • They cite things that, at the time, the LAAP-dog media downplayed as terrorist attacks because of the race of the perpetrators:
     • a mass murder in New York City in 2017, which killed eight people and injured others, was a terrorist attack carried out in support of ISIS
     • a 2019 attack by an extremist member of Saudi Arabia’s military, which killed three US servicemembers and injured others at a military base in Florida, “was motivated by jihadist ideology” and was carried out by a longtime “associate” of al Qaeda.
     • a “domestic terrorist attack” when one of Trump’s supporters mailed improvised explosive devices to prominent Democratic officials, CNN and other people in 2018
     • a White supremacist pleaded guilty to multiple charges in New York, including first-degree murder in furtherance of an act of terrorism, for killing a Black man in March 2017 to try to start a race war
     • a 2019 shooting massacre at a Walmart in Texas as an act of domestic terrorism; the gunman who killed 23 people was targeting Latinos

4. that Iran didn’t fund terror groups during his presidency
   • Trump’s claim that Iran wasn’t funding Hezbollah, Hamas or any other terror group during his presidency is false. Iran’s funding for such groups did decline in the second half of his presidency, in large part because his sanctions on Iran had a major negative impact on the Iranian economy, but the funding never stopped entirely

5. that the US has provided more aid to Ukraine than Europe has
   • [Me: From a 12/1/23 article,] Trump’s figures are grossly inaccurate. Germany’s Kiel Institute for the World Economy, which tracks aid to Ukraine, found that, through July 31, the European Union was the largest contributor of aid to Ukraine since late January 2022 (including military, humanitarian and financial aid), at $85.1 billion in direct commitments, while the US was second at $76.8 billion.

     The US was the largest contributor of military aid in particular, at $46.6 billion in commitments...

6. that Biden for years referred to Black people as “super predators,”
   • [Me: CNN cited an X post:] Joe Biden never used the term "super predators" except to say most youth weren't "super predators" in arguing against putting youth in adult prisons in 1998.

     He did use the term "predators" in a 1993 floor speech in support of the crime bill.

7. that Biden is planning to quadruple people’s taxes
   • Howard Gleckman, senior fellow in the Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center at the Urban Institute think tank, said in an email: ...his organization’s analysis of Biden’s budget proposal for fiscal 2024, which included his most recent tax plan, found that the major tax provisions would “would raise taxes by an average of $2,290, or reduce taxable income by 2.3 percent.”

8. that then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi turned down 10,000 National Guard troops for the US Capitol on January 6, 2021
   • In an October speech in Florida, Trump again tried to cast blame on Rep. Nancy Pelosi, the former speaker of the House, over the attack on the US Capitol by a pro-Trump mob on January 6, 2021. Trump said: “She’s a bad woman…And she was responsible for security at the Capitol, just so you [know] – we offered her 10,000 soldiers. She was responsible for the security of the Capitol. And she failed.”

     [Me: This is also from the 12/1/23 article, from before we saw the video of Pelosi admitting responsibility for not having the National Guard troops at the Capitol]

9. that Americans don’t pay the cost of his tariffs on China and other countries
   • First and most critically, this money wasn’t from China. Though the Trump administration made the payments because farmers had been hurt by his trade war with China, the aid money came from US taxpayers: Study after study, including one this year from the federal government’s bipartisan US International Trade Commission, has found that Americans have borne almost the entire cost of Trump’s tariffs on Chinese products.

10. that Europe accepts no American cars
    • t’s not true either that the European Union won’t take American products in general or won’t accept American cars in particular, though some US exports face EU trade barriers and though US automakers have often had a hard time gaining popularity with European consumers...

      According to a December 2023 report from the European Automobile Manufacturers’ Association, the EU is the second-largest market for US vehicle exports — importing 271,476 US vehicles in 2022, valued at nearly 9 billion euro. (Some of these are vehicles made by European automakers at plants in the US.) The EU’s Eurostat statistical office says that car imports from the US hit a new peak in 2020, Trump’s last full year in office, at a value of about 11 billion euro.

11. that he is the president who got the Veterans Choice program through Congress
    • former President Barack Obama signed the Choice program into law in 2014. The law, which allowed eligible veterans to be covered by the government for care provided by doctors outside the VA system, was a bipartisan initiative spearheaded by two senators Trump has repeatedly criticized, Bernie Sanders of Vermont and the late John McCain of Arizona...

      What Trump signed was a 2018 law, the VA MISSION Act, that modified and expanded the eligibility criteria from the Choice program.

12. that fraud marred the results of the 2020 election
    • [Me: I won't bother including CNN's rebuttal]

-PJ

[j.havenfarm]

Not that I care enough to go look for it, but for this author one would expect a side by side listing of the alleged falsehoods so the reader can decide for themselves

[gunnut]

I think Trump should decline the second debate saying he won’t be a part of the elder abuse of Biden.

[wildcard_redneck]

More data that shows the effects of the debate.

“But according to OpenLabs, that's only part of the story. While the debate may have barely registered in national data, in their surveys of key Electoral College states where voters are paying closer attention to the campaign, Biden is doing noticeably worse. In a poll including third-party candidates, such as Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the president has fallen by around 2 points in every single core battleground—and also in states that were not even on the 2024 map last week. In the tipping-point state of Pennsylvania, Biden now trails by 7 points, compared to 5 points before the debate. He has also dropped in Michigan, where he now trails Trump by 7. OpenLabs also found that he is now losing by roughly 10 points in Georgia and Arizona, and by almost 9 points in Nevada.”
https://www.reddit.com/r/ezraklein/comments/1dttpiz/biden_plunges_in_swing_states_in_leaked/?rdt=35725

[Owen]

I get it, you’re a Trump hater and want a stronger opponent.

I have never heard of that survey. I have heard of the SINGLE post debate horse race survey that shows no change.

Frankly a 1 or 2% change would be encouraging for Biden. Such a horrendous performance changing minds only within margin of error.

Let’s let the clock run and have him get out there campaigning. Then they can’t put up a stronger opponent.

[wildcard_redneck]

Getting hot under the collar? Only a fool would think that that debate disaster would have no effect on the polls for Pedo Joe. You’re not a fool are you?

[TexasFreeper2009]

100% Trump shouldn’t do another debate.

[Owen]

Let’s assume for a moment you are not a Never Trumper. I don’t recall your name pushing governance and the glory of elitism but it’s the right default presumption when people are trying to get a stronger replacement facing Trump.

I did not and so far am vindicated in expecting very little change in the presidential preference. 95% of Biden supporters are not Biden supporters, they are Trump haters. Nothing in that debate would change that.

There would be only a tiny number who actually care what happens with Biden. Mostly, they care about defeating Trump.

So that is why I expected no change in the polls, and have seen none. It’s very good news for Trump. It provides the Democrats or more specifically Biden’s staff cause to believe the debate did not hurt them — and indeed it did not, because there is nothing Trump can do or Biden can do to shift Biden voters to Trump.