Wednesday night didn’t turn out exactly the way Donald Trump had hoped. He wanted to upstage the Republican primary debate, but, despite the big number of views his interview with Tucker Carlson received, it likely wasn’t as well watched as the GOP debate. And it looks like it was a really good night for Ron DeSantis, his most formidable rival.
For starters, according to a snap poll conducted by the Washington Post with FiveThrityEight and Ipsos, DeSantis won the debate.
“And they thought Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis came out on top Wednesday night, with 29 percent of Republican voters who watched the debate saying he performed best. He was nearly matched by former pharmaceutical executive Vivek Ramaswamy, with 26 percent saying he performed best,” the Washington Post reported. “The findings may be surprising because DeSantis generally stayed above the fray in a raucous debate, though Ramaswamy received and delivered lots of barbs.”
Nikki Haley got 15% in the poll, and the rest all scored in the single-digits. “Just 7 percent say former vice president Mike Pence performed best, with 4 percent each saying former New Jersey governor Chris Christie or South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott,” the Washington Post reported. “One percent each say North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum or former Arkansas governor Asa Hutchinson.”
You’ve probably heard on social media many Trump voters declaring that Trump won the debate by not showing up and doing his interview with Tucker Carlson instead. Well, Trump wasn’t included in the poll because he didn’t show up, but only 13% of respondents said that “none of these candidates” won the debate. It may not be a perfect substitute for saying “Trump won the debate,” but it’s the closest metric we have. In fact, I’m going to say it’s a decent one because, according to the poll, among debate watchers Trump saw a modest dip in support after the poll.
Related: Is This Proof the Liberal Media Fears Ron DeSantis?
Haley showed the most improvement, but that’s largely due to her low share of support to begin with. As the Washington Post notes:
Still, other candidates have larger shares of debate watchers saying they’re considering voting for them, including DeSantis at 67 percent, which is up slightly from 62 percent pre-debate. Ramaswamy also saw a modest increase in the share saying they would consider supporting him, from 40 percent to 46 percent, though the percentage saying they would not consider voting for him ticked up by five percentage points as well. Notably, debate watchers are slightly less likely to say they will consider supporting Trump after the debate (61 percent now, 66 percent before).
So not only did Trump see a dip in support amongst debate viewers, DeSantis saw a bump. This is not the result that Trump would have wanted out of the debate. On top of that, DeSantis reportedly raised over $1 million in the first 24 hours after the debate, suggesting that he has built significant momentum as a result of his performance.
“DeSantis entered the debate looking to make a renewed pitch to a national audience and his campaign quickly worked to capitalize on his performance with an all-day fundraiser with donors in Milwaukee the day after — resulting in a cash win for the Florida governor, according to DeSantis’ campaign,” reports ABC News.
A DeSantis adviser told the network, “today was a great call day for the campaign. There’s a lot of renewed excitement around his performance last night that translated into a good fundraising day.”
