Kamala Harris was always going to be crowned the winner of the debate on Tuesday. Frankly, I was disappointed in Trump's performance, and I would argue that they have a point. However, according to a Trump campaign memo received by PJ Media, it was Trump, not Kamala Harris, who got a bump from the debate.
"Last night, we conducted a survey of 1,893 likely voters across our seven key target states," Trump pollsters Tony Fabrizio & Travis Tunis write in the memo. "We found that despite the best efforts of Kamala Harris and media to portray the debate as some kind of overwhelming win for her, voters did not see it this way as support for her remained flat."
"The only change we saw was a 2-point bump for President Trump in both ballot configurations," they added.
In last week’s data (pre-debate) from our surveys (N=5,600) across our seven target states, both the full and head-to-head ballots were split dead even. In our post-debate data, President Trump leads Vice President Harris by 2-points, 48% - 46%, and in the head-to-head ballot, he is up 3-points, 50% - 47%. Clearly, target state voters were not impressed by Kamala Harris’ empty platitudes, and while the media would have people believe she is cruising to victory, this couldn’t be farther from the truth.
Trump pollster @TonyFabrizioGOP finds Trump got a boost from the debate. pic.twitter.com/Rb3PLewKoE
— Matt Margolis (@mattmargolis) September 12, 2024
Now, I've said this before, and I'll say it again: you should take partisan and internal poll findings with a grain of salt. That said, despite my initial negative reaction to Trump’s performance in the debate, there has been a torrent of data suggesting that independent and undecided voters generally shifted to Trump after the debate.
Related: This Focus Group Changed How I Feel About the Trump-Harris Debate
Focus groups from multiple networks may have found Kamala Harris winning on style, but they also showed that these persuadable voters had a more nuanced perspective of the debate than the pundit class.
A Reuters focus group showed that six out of ten undecided voters leaned toward Trump afterward, while only three moved toward Harris. Additionally, The New York Times noted that undecided voters were not impressed with Harris’s lack of specific plans. Fox News also had a dial-monitor focus group conducted by pollster Lee Carter, revealing that independent voters strongly aligned with Republicans on key issues, particularly regarding the economy and immigration. Their reactions to Harris's attacks on Trump were similarly negative and tracked closely with those of the Republicans.
So, with that in mind, it wasn't outside the realm of possibility that Trump would get a bump in the polls post-debate when you consider these focus groups.
On Thursday, Trump revealed that he won't do any more debates. "When a prizefighter loses a fight, the first words out of his mouth are, 'I WANT A REMATCH,'" he wrote in a post on Truth Social. "Polls clearly show that I won the Debate against Comrade Kamala Harris, the Democrats’ Radical Left Candidate, on Tuesday night, and she immediately called for a Second Debate."
He added, "She was a no-show at the Fox Debate, and refused to do NBC & CBS. KAMALA SHOULD FOCUS ON WHAT SHE SHOULD HAVE DONE DURING THE LAST ALMOST FOUR YEAR PERIOD. THERE WILL BE NO THIRD DEBATE!"
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