What is clear is that Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren were the only candidates who helped themselves

But Bloomberg was really battered in a way that the other candidates were not. Part of it was that he was an unknown quantity. Part of it was that he came across as a humorless scold who wanted to run everyone’s lives.

NEW POST-#DEMDEBATE POLL ahead of #NevadaCaucus: • @MikeBloomberg’s first-choice support fell 3 points nationwide, to 17 percent and behind @JoeBiden.

• His net favorability fell 20 points, the only significant movement among candidates. More:https://t.co/DTi3N0Vx2t pic.twitter.com/Pzz0tOOU8D — Eli Yokley (@eyokley) February 21, 2020

I only have a master’s degree and it took be some frustrating minutes to decipher this. All numbers are rounded off to whole digits. So if we look at the “ALL” category, Bloomberg became 10 points more unfavorably viewed after the debate than before (for a -10 rating) and he lost 9 points in favorability (rendered as -9). Add the two together and you get -19 and the rounding brings it to -20. I think the more traditional way of seeing this as a -10 is better, but big numbers get big attention, I guess.

As you can see, Bloomberg only gained ground with one group, self-described conservatives. I suspect that part of the poll was conducted among the staff of The Bulward, The Dispatch, and corners of the Washington Examiner.

The good news for Bloomberg is that he’s above 50% approval with every group. But if he dropped like this after one appearance, one in which he had something of a Halo Effect going with moderates and liberals, then he has plenty of downside mobility in the coming weeks.