CNN
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Registered voters who watched Tuesday’s debate between vice presidential candidates Tim Walls and JT Vance were closely divided on which candidate performed better. CNN Instant Poll of debate viewers conducted by SSRSAnd the event gave viewers more positive views of the two candidates than the pre-debate.
Among debate watchers, Walls remains the most positive and the candidate most in touch with their needs and vision for the country. Suffering from a poor image with both audiences and the general public, Vance rose to prominence among debate audiences, surpassing expectations and earning the role he deserved. He also narrowly appeared to do a better job of protecting his partner than Walls. Poll results show that both are seen by a majority of debate watchers as capable of taking over the presidency if necessary. And virtually none of the voters who tuned in saw the debate as a reason to change their vote.
Following the debate, 51% of viewers said Vance did better, while 49% chose Walls. In a poll of the same voters before the debate, Walls was favored as the candidate they expected to perform more strongly, 54% to 45%.
Opinions were closely divided about the outcome of Tuesday’s debate, a stark contrast to the more decisive audience reaction after this year’s high-profile debates. In June, two-thirds of debate viewers thought former President Donald Trump did better than President Joe Biden, while a 63% majority who tuned into the September debate between Trump and Kamala Harris said the vice president did better.
Views of the vice presidential hopefuls split along pre-established political lines Tuesday night: 90% of debate viewers who support Trump’s candidacy said Vance did well, while a slightly narrower 82% of Harris supporters saw Walls. Winner.
Poll results reflect the views of the debate only among voters who do not represent the views of the entire voting public. Debate viewers were 3 percentage points more likely to affiliate with the Democratic Party than with the Republican Party in the poll, making the audience roughly 5 percentage points more pro-Democrat than all registered voters nationally. That’s a difference from the audience for the two presidential debates this year, both of which were slightly more GOP-leaning than the overall American electorate. For voters who don’t tune in, hearing about an event in the following days can have just as much impact as immediate footage of the event.
Following the debate, 59% of debate viewers said they viewed Walls favorably, while just 22% viewed him unfavorably — an improvement from his already positive numbers among the same voters before the debate (46% favorable, 32% unfavorable). Debate viewers came away from the debate with neutral views of Vance: 41% rated him favorably and 44% unfavorably. It’s an improvement from their image of Vance before the debate, when his ratings among this group were deeply underwater (30% favorable, 52% unfavorable).
Among debate viewers, Walls increased his support among women more than men, while Vance’s gains were similar among both sexes. About 1 in 5 Trump supporters (21%) say they have a favorable view of Walls, while Vance’s favorable rating among Harris supporters is just 8%.
In a CNN poll of all Americans taken before the debate, Walls’ views were above water, with 36% of voters viewing him favorably, 32% unfavorably, and a substantial 33% saying they had never or never heard of him. Opinion about him. In contrast, views of Vance skewed negatively, with 30% of registered voters favorable to him, 42% unfavorable, and 27% expressing no opinion.
A 65% majority of debate watchers now say Walls is qualified to serve as president, compared to 58% who say the same as Vance. Before the debate, 62% of those same voters thought Wallis was qualified to assume the presidency if necessary, and 50% thought Vance was qualified to do so.
Debate viewers said, 48% to 35%, that Walls is more in touch than Vance with the needs and problems of people like them, and by the same margin, 48% to 39%, that Walls shares more closely than Vance. Their vision of America. The share of viewers who said the two vice presidential hopefuls were in touch with their issues more than doubled, from 12% to 6% — a level of positivity unusual in this year’s election cycle.
There is a significant gender gap among viewers on which candidate most closely shares their view of America: Among female voters, Walls has a clear advantage, she says, compared to 36% who see Vance’s view as close to their own. Male voters were evenly split, 47% for Walls to 43% for Vance.
By a narrow margin of 37% to 33%, Vance did a better job than Walls of defending his running mate, with 27% saying each candidate did equally well and 3% not. Seven in 10 Trump supporters said Vance did a better job protecting his running mate, while 57% of Harris supporters said Walls did a better job.
Just 1% of voters who paid attention to the debate said they had changed their minds about who to vote for, with Harris and Trump supporters equally unlikely to view the event as decisive.
The CNN poll was conducted via text message with 574 registered U.S. voters who said they watched Tuesday’s debate, and the poll results represent only the views of those who watched the debate. Respondents were selected for participation prior to the discussion through a survey of members of the SSRS Commentary, a nationally representative group recruited using probability-based sampling techniques. Results for the full sample of debate viewers have a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 5.3 percentage points.
