BREAKING NEWS: New Post-Presidential Debate HarrisX/Forbes Poll Shows Trump Defeating Biden

3 months ago

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00:00Hi, everybody. I'm Brittany Lewis with Forbes Breaking News. Joining me now is Harris X founder

00:07and CEO Driton Esho. Driton, thanks for coming on in. Thanks for having me back in the studio.

00:12We have a lot to discuss. Last week, we saw a historic consequential presidential debate

00:18between current President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump. And you have a poll,

00:24Harris X Forbes poll that shows what voters thought after the debate. So let's talk about

00:29first, how was it impacting the horse race? Well, our poll went into the field right after the

00:34debate and essentially ran throughout the weekend. 1500 registered voters took the survey.

00:42It hasn't changed the horse race. Now, that doesn't mean it's not consequential, but the

00:48horse race today is Trump up by four, the same that it was a few weeks ago when we last connected

00:57together. And that's because partisans have by and large dug their heels. They've made up their

01:03minds, Republicans and Democrats, and independents are already breaking by 10 points plus for

01:12President Trump. So Trump sustains his advantage. But where there's a lot of negative news,

01:21especially for President Biden and the Biden camp, is in the perceptions that voters had

01:28around Biden's performance in the debate, the perceptions that they have on whether or not

01:33he's too old to be in the office that he holds. And usually it's these softer variables that

01:40precede a much larger shift in the horse race. So I think that we'll really see the impact of

01:48the debate over the course of the next week or two as public opinion settles. But right now,

01:53the horse race is exactly the same as it was before. We're about four months out from the

01:58election. And the last time you and I talked was right after Trump's verdict dropped. And you said

02:03it didn't really change anything because this is baked in. A, people will have months to digest

02:09this. Trump is a convicted felon. People have known these legal challenges. Is that similar

02:14to Joe Biden in the sense that people have a few months to digest? Hey, his cognitive abilities

02:19seem to be on the decline? Well, I think that to an extent, it's baked in. But to another extent,

02:30it was quite shocking, the debate performance. And in a sister survey that I also conducted around

02:36the weekend with Harvard University, the Harvard Caps-Harris poll, we have trended for over two

02:42years now, maybe even longer, whether or not voters think that Biden is too old for the office

02:48of the presidency or whether they think that he's fine. The number jumped by over 10 points.

02:56So now three-fourths of all voters think that Biden is too old for the office that he's holding.

03:03And in a similar fashion, over two-thirds believe that he doesn't have the faculties

03:12to be president. So those are concerning numbers. And the fact that we still saw a double-digit jump

03:20in those metrics, it shows you that it crystallized opinion around the fact that the president is too

03:28old. And this is why you see the panic that you see amongst Democratic elites right after the

03:33debate. Despite all of the management that they've done on the performance, there's a lot of concern,

03:40widespread concern about whether or not Biden can see through. And what about the

03:45undecideds and leaners? Because once again, when you and I talked about Trump's convicted

03:49felon status, you said for them, this is one piece of a larger puzzle. For undecideds,

03:55for leaners, is this one piece for them in a larger puzzle? Well, the interesting thing about

04:00undecideds and leaners is that they are predominantly female, predominantly suburban,

04:10predominantly wealthy, predominantly educated. This is a core Democratic voting group. And the fact

04:18that they are undecided tells us a lot to begin with. The other thing is that depending on the

04:24polls that you see, the undecideds are either breaking for Biden slightly because this is a core

04:34Biden-based demographic, or in our own Harris X. Forbes poll, Trump had a very slight advantage.

04:41Essentially, they were splitting the undecideds 50-50. And this is concerning for President Biden

04:48because there's not enough undecideds and there's not enough share of votes amongst the undecideds

04:54for him to make up ground. Trump is overperforming 2020 in terms of his pool with Black voters. He's

05:04now at about 25 to 30 percent. That's three times more than he won in 2020 in terms of share of

05:11votes with Black voters. They're tying the Latino vote. They're each at 41 percent apiece with the

05:18remaining 18 percent or so being undecided amongst Latinos. And now, of course, Trump wins the white

05:26vote by 15-plus points. So if something is going to move, then neither of these groups can really

05:36make up the difference unless they really start changing their perceptions and changing their mind

05:43along the way. And there's not a lot of runway left. It's only about four months. So that's the

05:48picture of the undecideds. It's a conventionally Biden group, but they haven't yet made up their

05:54mind, and that tells us a lot. What about the impact on third parties here? Because yesterday

05:59I was talking to the Libertarian Party presidential nominee, Chase Oliver, and he said, selfishly,

06:04I hope Biden stays in the race because I think more voters will come to me. The night of the

06:09debate, I had multiple Democratic voters talking to me, messaging me, saying, hey, I'm a lifelong

06:15Democrat. I can't vote for Trump, but in good conscience, I can't vote for Biden. So are third

06:21parties benefiting from Biden's debate performance? Well, there's not a lot of third-party choice out

06:26there. I mean, the strongest third-party candidate is RFK Jr. He wasn't on the debate stage. We asked

06:35the question in our own Harris X Forbes poll, are you more or less likely to vote for Trump,

06:43for Biden, and for an independent candidate? And what we noticed is that by a margin of plus 10

06:51points, they were much more likely to vote for Trump. So 39% said more likely, 29% said less

07:00likely. The rest said it didn't make any difference. When you look at Biden, by a margin

07:05of 15 points, they said that they were less likely to vote for him after watching the debate than they

07:12were to vote for him after the debate. And then we asked the same question for a third-party candidate,

07:19and it was 18% more likely to vote for the third-party candidate, 19% less likely to vote.

07:25And then for the overwhelming majority, it did make a difference. So whatever shaking of the box

07:30happened with the debate, these voters aren't really yet thinking about RFK Jr. or any of the

07:37third-party candidate. None of the tickets are prominent enough at this stage to be able to

07:43capture a good share of vote. At least that's what we're seeing in the polls right now. As we sit here

07:48today, some Democratic lawmakers are breaking rank and they're calling on President Biden to step

07:54aside. We also saw former Democratic Congressman Tim Ryan call for Biden to step aside and Kamala

08:01Harris, the Vice President, to be the nominee. How does Kamala Harris stack up to Trump in a

08:06head-to-head matchup? So in our poll, Kamala Harris performs worse than Biden does by a small difference,

08:15but Trump is ahead by about seven points when you put him against Harris. And I don't think that

08:25she's the alternative. Now, there are several Democratic names that have been floated as

08:33potential substitutes for President Biden in the convention. None of them poll as well as

08:40President Biden either, but that's because they don't have the same name idea as President Biden

08:46does. And the new candidate will need to be built up adequately to be competitive. And who are those

08:55names? Well, I think in a future poll together, we've tested Gretchen Whitmer, we've tested

09:03Gavin Newsom, we've tested Pete Buttigieg, several leading Democratic candidates,

09:10and we'll continue testing other names. But again, any new candidate, a substitute candidate,

09:18would need to be built up, would have to tell their story, would have to make their own case

09:22to the American public. And as it stands, Biden is the best of the worst, right? He polls the best

09:30and he's the most competitive against Trump. So that's what our poll shows. Today, a poll from

09:37CNN came out that shows the opposite, that both in a head-to-head matchup, Biden would lose to Trump,

09:42Kamala Harris would lose to Trump, but Kamala Harris's loss is smaller than Biden's. Can you

09:47explain the difference here between our poll and CNN's? I haven't had the chance to look at the

09:52CNN poll yet, but I'm pretty sure the differences are quite small. And it's all in the composition

09:59of the sample, as viewers will know. You need to have also a perspective or a view of the share

10:06of vote amongst Democrats, Republicans, and Independents. In our own poll, we keep that

10:14pegged to the 2020 election, to the share of vote there, which was roughly 37 percent Democrat,

10:2036 percent Republican, and 24 percent Independent. So if there's any big differences there, then

10:27maybe you're getting more Democrats in your poll than you are Republicans, and that kind

10:31of might explain the hope in Kamala Harris. The Democrats and Republicans I've talked to

10:37post-debate have all described President Biden's performance as disastrous, devastating. I think

10:45the only one who had a positive word about his performance was Dr. Joe Biden directly after

10:50the debate. So what did this do to both his approval rating as well as Kamala Harris's?

10:56Well, President Biden's approval rating is at a two-year low. He's at about 38 percent in our

11:07poll together with Forbes, and so is Kamala Harris, right, 38 percent approval. Those are

11:14not the kind of numbers that drive re-election for either of them. And we have seen a similar

11:23pattern in other polls as well. So the approval numbers are quite low, and in our poll,

11:34two-thirds of voters said that Trump had a better performance than Biden did. This is very consistent

11:42with the post-debate poll that CNN conducted, which roughly had a little bit over two-thirds saying

11:50Trump did better than Biden. So I think that what we're seeing in the approval numbers is this

11:57post-debate effect. Maybe that will bounce back, maybe not. But right now they're underwater

12:06fairly significantly and at a low when you look at it trended over the course of last year or two.

12:12When you and I have talked before, President Biden's approval ratings were in the 40 percent.

12:17Now they're in the 30 percent, 38 percent. Can an incumbent win with that type of approval rating?

12:24Well, a lot can happen between now and November, and both of these candidates in their own ways

12:33are both very well known by the public and tainted in the eyes of the public, right,

12:38for different reasons. So yes, is there still a possibility that Biden could win?

12:45Absolutely. But right now the momentum is with Trump. It's not with Biden. And that's reflected

12:54in the approval rating. That's reflected in the horse race. That's reflected in the fact that

12:59despite all of the legal cases, Trump is able to sustain the support that he has amongst Republicans

13:05and independents. So if something is going to change, then it's not what has been happening

13:12up until now. It has to be something net new that really moves the electorate. And I would tell you

13:19that what moves the electorate is a focus on issues. What moves the electorate is a focus on

13:25the problems that they are facing. And the great missed opportunity in the debate on Thursday night

13:31was that neither of the candidates focused on tabletop issues and on the problems of the

13:37electorate. And we asked this question in our poll, did you think that they came up with solutions

13:43to the problems that you're facing or not? Two-thirds said no new solutions. Only 55 percent said that

13:49there was new and interesting information in the debate. But 45 percent didn't find the debate to

13:56be very useful to them in any way, shape, or form. And the overwhelming majority of the respondents

14:04in our poll said that both candidates should have focused more on education, immigration, inflation,

14:11on the top issues, less on the legal problems that the president's son is facing or Donald Trump

14:17is facing. So voters are yearning for solutions and they're yearning for a vision for what comes

14:24after November. And none of the candidates, neither of the candidates right now, the main

14:29candidates are providing that. No one's takeaway from the debate was what was said. It was instead

14:35how it was said. And as we know, for President Biden's reelection campaign, something that's

14:40been hanging over his head like a dark cloud is his age and mental acuity. And that was on full

14:44display for 90 minutes on Thursday night. There have been questions now raised. Can he finish

14:51this campaign, let alone, hey, can he finish a four-year term? Do voters think that he could

14:56finish a second term? No, no. And that is one of the most striking findings in our survey. We asked

15:05that for both President Biden and former President Trump. And two-thirds of voters believe Trump will

15:11finish a second term, whereas only about a third of voters believe Biden will finish a second term.

15:20And when you ask them, when do you think that a vice president, in this case Kamala Harris, would

15:26step in, half of them believe that she would step in in the first year of re-election on the second

15:33term. And then it increases from there onwards. So you do have a self-conscious electorate

15:42that's increasingly starting to believe that a vote for Biden is a vote for Kamala Harris.

15:49The problem is that Kamala Harris is not more competitive than Biden, at least in the polling

15:54that we are doing. And she comes with her own set of issues and her own set of problems. And

16:00that's not giving any reassurance to Democratic voters, to independent voters, and the electorate

16:06writ large. What do you think the solution is here for Democrats? Because it seems like they

16:11are at a crossroads. Do we continue full force with President Biden? Because according to your

16:16numbers, as of now, that's the best option that they have from all those other names being floated.

16:22Or do they change course? Does it seem like most voters want them to stay the course?

16:28Well, I think that most Democrats, Democratic voters, would stay the course. And

16:39if that happens, then President Biden and the Democratic campaign has to start focusing on

16:48middle ground solutions to the issues that matter to the electorate. Solutions around inflation,

16:55solutions around immigration and the border. And they have to pivot towards the center.

17:02They have to focus on swing voters rather than the base, because they've already tapped

17:07the base to the extent that they can. And actually winning the voters in the middle

17:12is much more valuable than turning up more base voters. The math of swing voters works such that

17:19if you switch one voter from one camp to another, it's a net effect of two. It's minus one on one

17:24side of the equation, plus one on the other side of the equation. And in order to make up for losing

17:29a swing voter, you have to turn out two base voters. And so I think that if they stay the

17:35course, the solution is focus on practical problem solving, focus on the needs of the middle,

17:44the common sense middle. If they do switch the candidate, then it's a function of,

17:50can they stand up a new candidate and tell their story to be competitive with Trump?

17:57Now, some of the possible replacements, they're not far off in terms of their performance, right?

18:03If you put a Pete Buttigieg or a Gretchen Widener or even Gavin Newsom against Trump,

18:12maybe they're losing by eight to ten points in the horse race. But again, their name ID,

18:18their recognition is lower. And in practice, you would expect that gap to shrink,

18:25especially if the candidate is well introduced and the candidate is kidding on the issues and

18:30the topics that the electorate wants them to hit. So I think that President Biden,

18:36I don't think that he will be pushed aside or he can be pushed aside. The decision is his. But

18:42this weekend in Camp David, this is the kind of conversations that they'll be having and

18:47the kind of calculations they'll be having. It's an unclear path either way, right? And it's an

18:52uncertain path either way for the Democrats. So let's now pivot. I know we've been spending a lot

18:57of time talking about President Biden. Let's talk about President Trump a little bit, because do you

19:02think the polls regarding him are accurate? Because in 2016, as we know, he was underestimated. In

19:082020, he overperformed the polls. And now he's winning against President Biden by a sustained

19:15margin for a sustained period of time. So do you think the polls are accurate? What does that look

19:19like? I think that people are becoming more and more comfortable saying that they're supporting

19:26Trump. The more and more momentum he builds and the more and more resilience he shows in the polls.

19:33So I would expect the polls to be fairly close. Historically, you're right that polls have

19:41undercounted Trump's support, and especially phone polls when people are around other people

19:50they don't necessarily want to say that they support Trump. Online polls are closer. But I feel

19:57that we are getting an accurate representation of the fact that the electorate is leaning towards

20:06Trump. It's going to be a close election, at least in terms of the popular vote. The big question is

20:14how does it translate in the electoral college? And right now what we're seeing in the state

20:19polling is Trump far ahead of Biden in many battleground states which are essential to victory,

20:26sometimes by six points, by eight points, and even beyond. If that holds, then it'll be a sweep in the

20:32electoral college. And so what I would say is that we have to pay as much attention, if not more, to

20:38the state polls than we are to the national polls to really get a clear sense of the direction of

20:44the election. And I think the state polls are showing us that Trump is doing very, very well.

20:49And what about Nikki Haley voters? Does he have to be concerned about them anymore? Because

20:53as we know, a Nikki Haley Republican is very different from a Donald Trump Republican.

20:58But are those Nikki Haley Republicans watching that debate from Thursday night and saying,

21:03hey, listen, even though I said I'm a never Trumper, I'm going to hold my nose and I'm

21:07going to vote for Trump because he's the better option than Joe Biden?

21:12Well, I think what we're seeing, given also the sustained fundraising, is that this is not

21:21going to be a low turnout election. People seem to be very energized. It seems to be a similar

21:27election to 2020 where it's a high turnout election. In a situation like that, if you're in

21:32the Trump camp, you want to make sure that you are pulling as many Republican voters as possible

21:41and not allowing those voters to lapse. A key consideration here is who he will pick as vice

21:48president. We have done polling together with Forbes on Trump's vice presidential pick. And

21:55while on the surface Republicans say that they prefer Ron DeSantis and Nikki Haley,

22:01actually when you ask the question, would you be more or less likely to vote for Trump if he picks

22:08fill in the blank in terms of name, Marco Rubio and Tim Scott give him the most traction. Rubio

22:14with Latinos and obviously Scott with black voters. And I think that his vice presidential

22:22pick will go a long way in securing the South Republican vote. But when you step back and you

22:29look at whose vote is stronger, whose support is stronger, Trump's support is significantly

22:34stronger right now than Biden's support. You see a lot more soft Biden voters than you see soft

22:40Trump voters. Thursday night's debate really seems like one of those touch points in an election

22:45that totally can change everything. A, do you agree? And B, what are you looking out for next

22:52between now and November? Well, I think, again, if the Democrats are going to stay the course and

23:00keep President Biden, their hope will be that this blows over and the narrative changes very quickly.

23:06So I would expect a flurry of activity from the Biden administration and the Biden campaign to

23:14change the narrative very quickly, focused on issues, focused on the things that voters want

23:19but didn't get during the debate because of the poor performance and the lack of focus on

23:24solutions that both of the candidates had. So I would expect sustained activity. On the other hand,

23:34you see even today Judge Beckham in New York pushing the sentencing of Donald Trump to take

23:41stock of some of the recent Supreme Court decisions on presidential immunity. So you see that

23:49the noose is loosening around Trump, and it'll be very interesting to see what the Trump camp

23:57comes up with next in terms of an announcement. I think the vice president announcement is really

24:05the next big tentpole for them, and that's an announcement that while I don't think it can

24:13hurt President Trump either way, making a wise choice can certainly help him. And it seems like

24:20that choice is somewhere between Marco Rubio and Tim Scott right now, based on the polling.

24:24Driton, per usual, I appreciate your insights. I always look forward to our conversations.

24:29Thank you so much for joining me.

24:30Thank you for having me.

BREAKING NEWS: New Post-Presidential Debate HarrisX/Forbes Poll Shows Trump Defeating Biden

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