According to a recent survey conducted by St. Anselm College in New Hampshire, a debate between President Joe Biden and presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump potentially influenced the state’s voters. The survey of 1,700 registered voters suggests that the debate may have shifted support from Biden to Trump. According to the poll, Trump now holds a two-point lead (44%-42%) over Biden.
The results indicate a remarkable shift from the previous St. Anselm survey in December. At that time, Biden was leading by a significant 10 points.
New Hampshire post-debate poll from St. Anslem (change from December):
Trump 44 (+5)
Biden 42 (-7)Their last two polls were Biden +10 and Biden +9.
Democrats lead the generic ballot by 3, which means Biden is trailing generic Democrats by FIVE POINTS…
Your move, @DNC.
— The Darkest Timeline Numbersmuncher (@NumbersMuncher) July 1, 2024
New Hampshire Institute of Politics:
Biden +10 in December
Trump +2 in June pic.twitter.com/orG2GBsD0o— Ryan James Girdusky (@RyanGirdusky) July 1, 2024
Recent evidence suggests that Biden’s performance in the last week’s debate might have contributed to the shift in voter sentiment. However, there is also evidence indicating that the electorate was already trending towards Trump. Fifty-four percent of the debate-aware voters believed that Trump had won, while only 6% thought Biden had prevailed. Nevertheless, 81% of respondents stated that the debate would not impact their decision at the ballot box.
Neil Levesque, the director of the New Hampshire Institute of Politics at St. Anselm, said the poll shows “that New Hampshire is really a competitive state in the presidential election.” He added: “Events like a presidential debate like we saw last week are pivot points in politics, and at this point, with the amount of change we’ve seen with the presidential contest, certainly the debate had an effect.”
CNN’s top data reporter delivered horrible news to Biden’s reelection campaign just days after his terrible debate performance on the network against Trump. Harry Enten appeared on the network to declare that the polling numbers for Biden have cratered to historic lows for an incumbent president this close to the November election.
“CBS News and YouGov conducted some polling post-debate. We can compare it to the pre-debate numbers, and the bottom line is, it’s not any good,” he said. “Look at this, voters who say that Biden has the mental health to be president. It was just 35% pre-debate. Look where it’s dropped to now, post-debate, 27%. How about ‘not that he should be running’ for president? It was 37% pre-debate. It’s now 28%.”
Continuing, he said: “I have never seen numbers this bad for an incumbent president during my lifetime. I mean, ‘mental health to be president’ at just 27%? You might say, okay, that’s low, but a lot of people thought Biden was too old back in 2020. These numbers looked nothing like this back in 2020. These numbers were bad already, and the truth is, they have gotten just considerably worse, even in just a few days after that first presidential debate.”
Host Alisyn Camerota asked: “Do we have polling yet that suggests voters want a different candidate?” Enten responded, “Yeah, this is the whole question, right? If it’s not President Biden, then who could it be on the Democratic side? And the truth is, there are no easy answers. I went back and looked at the polling versus Donald Trump for a bunch of different Democrats that have been suggested: Gretchen Whitmer, Gavin Newsom, Kamala Harris. Look at this, they all trail Donald Trump.”
Enten went on: “So the idea here that we’re somehow going to get this magic bullet, that there’s somehow going to be some Democrat who can beat Donald Trump easily, I just don’t see it in the numbers. At this particular point, if Joe Biden takes on Donald Trump, he’s trailing.
“If there’s another Democrat who runs against Donald Trump, they too are trailing. Perhaps you want to make the argument that you bring in another Democrat who isn’t as well-known as Joe Biden, who has universal name recognition, and maybe they could change the numbers,” he said. “But the fact is, any Democrat who entered the race right now, at least among those that are being suggested by a bunch of folks, would all enter the race at this particular point as an underdog to former President Donald Trump.”
Disclaimer: This article may contain commentary which reflects the author’s opinion.