POLITICO / Morning Consult Poll: Warren Earns Top Marks in Second Primary Debates

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Arlington, VA — According to the latest POLITICO/Morning Consult poll, nearly a third of Democratic primary voters (31%) say Sen. Elizabeth Warren performed best in the last presidential primary debate, followed by Sen. Bernie Sanders (18%) and former Vice President Joe Biden (14%). Warren also received the highest percentage of “excellent” ratings (44%) from voters on her debate performance. Sanders (32%) and Biden (27%) rounded out the top three candidates who received "excellent" marks from voters. On the flipside of the spectrum, twenty-six percent of voters say that New York Mayor Bill de Blasio's performance was "poor." The poll was conducted August 1-3, following the second round of tense Democratic presidential primary debates in Detroit, Michigan.

“Democratic primary voters were underwhelmed with Senator Kamala Harris’ debate performance last week as her poll bounce continues to fade,” said Tyler Sinclair, Morning Consult’s vice president.“Notably, 43 percent of Democratic primary voters said Harris performed ‘excellent’ at the June debates, compared to 20 percent who said the same about last week’s Detroit debates.”

A notable portion of voters who watched the debates felt several topics were not discussed enough, including: infrastructure (59%); education reform (50%); gun policy (49%) and climate change (46%). Nearly four in ten voters (42%) indicated the candidates spoke too much about President Donald Trump. A plurality (42%) of primary voters believe that Biden has the best chance of beating Trump. That said, fourteen percent of primary voters said that they would absolutely not vote for the former Vice President, the highest among all of the candidates.

An overwhelming majority of voters, 85 percent, say they are “very likely” or “certain” to vote in the primary or caucus in their state. The President’s approval rating currently sits at forty-five percent compared to fifty-two percent disapproval. Fifty-eight percent of voters say that things in the country are on the wrong track -- a 2 percent decrease from last week's poll.



More details on the poll and its methodology can be found in these two documents:

Toplines: https://politi.co/2ZCRYAW | Crosstabs: https://politi.co/2Zy8xOc