President Joe Bidens performance during the first presidential debate has been widely panned, with critics and even those within his own party calling for him to step aside. But the question remained: Would Bidens shaky performance against former President Donald Trump result in a noticeable dip in the polls for the president?
According to a new report from the Northeastern University-led data project CHIP50, the answer is no.
Led by David Lazer, university distinguished professor of political science and computer science at Northeastern, the report indicates that the debate had little if any impact on peoples voting preference. Lazer hopes the report helps illustrate the dangers of making a mountain out of a molehill when it comes to the media interpreting data.
Even the New York Times, which is usually better about this, talked about a very tiny shift that was totally insignificant statistically like it was evidence that it was a shift toward Trump after the debate, Lazer says. My hope is that reporters look at this and say, Maybe we need to be careful in overinterpreting noise as actual signal.
Seeing the dominant narrative coming out of the debate, Lazer and the team at CHIP50 decided to test the hypothesis that Biden had lost ground in public opinion after the debate. Notably, Lazer says, they didnt survey two different cross-sectional groups of people before and after the debate like most polls. Instead, the team was able to survey the same group of respondents from a survey conducted before the debate.
Lazer says using the same group of people helps make the results more precise, which is important in polling that inherently has a margin of error.
What the report finds is that Biden held on to 94% of the people who said they would support him before the debate. For Trump, 86% of people who said they would support him before the debate said they would do so after the debate.
What we see is that there is some churn maybe 10 percent or so of people change what they answer but that the net result is not a movement away from Biden, Lazer says. If anything, it seems that Biden is holding on to his people somewhat better than Trump.
In fact, generally, the shift in support was actually more in Bidens favor, although Lazer notes its not statistically significant and well within the margin of error.
There were very minor shifts between the candidates: 1% of people who said they would vote for Biden before the debate, switched to preferring Trump, while 3% switched from Trump to Biden. Similarly, respondents who said they were unsure who they would vote for before the debate were slightly more likely to switch to preferring Biden after the debate.
[It all] points in the same direction, which is that it seems unlikely, based on our data, that things shifted toward Trump after the debate, Lazer says. If anything, our point estimate is a little more toward Biden, but I wouldnt make a lot of noise about that.
There were more significant, but still minor, shifts toward people preferring other third-party candidates after the debate. About 4% of Bidens supporters and 6% of Trumps supporters said they would prefer the Other category on the survey post-debate. Meanwhile, 6% of those who preferred another candidate before the debate shifted to both Biden and Trump after the debate, resulting in a small net impact.
The relatively stable trend of poll numbers in the 2024 election is indicative to Lazer of how polarizing politics have become where very little will sway voters from their preferred party.
Trump was convicted of a set of felonies, Lazer says. The impact it had on surveys was zero. Biden had a debate where most people said it proved he was too old. Survey respondents said, Yeah, I saw that. Hes too old. Im still voting for him. The numbers just arent moving.
He must step down immediatelyAnd you think Kamala will fare better?
I thought poll numbers literally didnt matter though?This is for the folks who still can't let polls go.
I thought poll numbers literally didnt matter though?
2 point shifts are not insignificant when the swing states are won by a few dozen thousand votes.Georgia and Arizona were a ~10,000 vote margin
It's very good that the bottom hasn't dropped out entirely in response to the debate. It's crucial to remain in striking distance. But the race was already in a bad position, any negative movement whatsoever could be catastrophic with the margins we're talking about. And this stuff can't help positive momentum or turnout.There's also Project 2025 spreading into the mainstream. So far, it's gotten a whole lot of attention from people who normally wouldn't be interested in politics. Heck, it's even exceeded Taylor Swift and the NFL on the Google search engine.
That said, I think the unpopularity of Trump and the fact that a lot of people already baked in Biden being or looking cooked into their vote will be enough to salvage things.
Friendly reminder that the "Red Wave" everyone was dreading in 2022 never happened either.Agreed. The media wants Democrats and their voters to be in disarray, but I say ignore them!
Democrats need to CALM THE FUCK DOWN and support their President.
Georgia and Arizona were a ~10,000 vote margin
also this is not about preferences. This is about motivating people to vote at all
Georgia and Arizona were a ~10,000 vote margin
also this is not about preferences. This is about motivating people to vote at all
I mean, realistically, the smart voters are already locked in. Also, we know what Biden and his administration has done the past 3+ years for the betterment of this country. One bad debate performance won't easily change that.This. Just this.
Also those Democrats and media that says for him to step down need to SHUT THE FUCK UP!
If there's one thing I can say about the Republican party that's great, they know how to stick with their candidate and push the agenda. Something Democrats need to take a page from.
That guy wants Biden to fail. He will ALWAYS take the negative side.No I fucking dont, I just live in a swing state that re elected a Republican in a statewide election in 2022, and I know democrats can not afford to depress voter enthusiasm because thats how theyll lose
I think he was talking about Dice. And I think you may have misunderstood Dice's post, you both are saying the same thing.Yeah my post was meant to agree with Dice, but correcting thats its an even slimmer margin than a few dozen thousand votes
I thought it was already settled that he's not stepping aside.Unfortunately, some people are still panicking over the attacks made towards him by the media, celebrities, and a number of his own allies.
People would vote for a corpse over Trump. That says everything.I would 100% vote for a Weekend at Bernie's situation with Biden over 4 more years of Vladimir Trump