Insights from Politico, The New York Times and Axios
The news
Less than a week after the American president Joe Biden And Donald Trump‘s first presidential debate, the first polls are starting to trickle in.
A survey shows that Democratic-leaning voters are now less likely to vote for Biden in the November election. Meanwhile, the share of Democrats who don’t think Biden should run for re-election also rose 10 points, according to a separate CBS News poll.
More than half (55%) of the party said he should still be the nominee, but 45% said he should step aside, the poll found. Looking at the total electorate, 72% of voters now say Biden should not run. That’s also up from February, when 63% said so.
SIGNALS
Damage control efforts during Biden campaign are failing to reach key voters
Biden and his campaign have tried to calm Democratic nerves in the days since the debate. At one event, Biden acknowledged he had a bad night but downplayed its significance. Not everyone agrees with the tactic. “The ‘it doesn’t matter’ response doesn’t reassure anyone,” MSNBC political analyst Bredan Buck Posted on X. Meanwhile, some influential donors have argued that Democrats’ whining will only help Trump. “When we dwell on Biden’s shortcomings, we’re not organizing around Trump’s shortcomings. That’s bad for us and good for them,” LinkedIn founder Reid Hoffman told The New York Times.
Early polls could be an overreaction
The campaign has so far focused on Biden’s poor debate performance being exaggerated in the media and that “voters reacted differently.” The campaign has also tried to get ahead of bad polls, with a memo from chair Jen O’Malley Dillon on Saturday saying, “If we see changes in the polls in the coming weeks, it won’t be the first time that exaggerated media stories have caused temporary drops in the polls.” Politico also noted that the initial polls after the debate “will likely not reveal the extent of the [Biden’s] “They are taking away his lead after his first debate against Donald Trump four years ago.”
It’s too early to know what will happen
Thursday marked the earliest presidential debate in history, and it’s too early to know how it will turn out. FiveThirtyEight’s weighted polling average shows Trump ahead by a narrow margin, with 41.3% of voters supporting him and 40.7% favoring Biden. Regardless of the polls or media narrative, there are only a handful of people who have Biden’s ear on this issue, as Ben Smith of Axios and Semafor have noted. “There are still many moments that could still change the campaign and will determine whether Biden’s bad night will prove fatal or not,” experts at the Brookings Institute wrote.
