538: Who Won The Vice Presidential Debate?

[TomCADem]

A lot of media outlets have cited to Republican Frank Lutz's survey group, which consisted mostly of men, who found Pence "presidential" and Harris "unpresidential." But the two broader polls conducted by CNN and 538 found that Harris not only performed better, but that she had an increased net favorability gain. So, what this shows is that the most political commentary is still seen from a white male lens, which can be misleading in that it discounts how women may have been turned off by Pence just talking over both Harris and the moderator, while many men would have seen that as totally appropriate.

https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/harris-pence-vp-debate-poll/

Debate watchers were more impressed with Harris’s performance than Pence’s, with 69 percent saying her performance was “very good” or “somewhat good,” compared to 60 percent who said the same for him. They were also more impressed with the policies she outlined. It’s noteworthy, though, that both vice presidential contenders got better marks for their performance than Trump did last week — just 33 percent thought the president performed well.

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Harris started out more popular than Pence before the debate, with a net favorability (favorable rating minus unfavorable rating) of +4, compared to his rating of -14. But both Harris and Pence had a large share of people who either hadn’t heard of them or didn’t have an opinion of them going into the debate, so there was an opportunity for them both to shift their favorable numbers. It seems, though, that Harris made a more positive impression. Pence ended up at the same -14 net favorability rating he started with, while Harris’s net favorability rating increased to +10 — which is even better than where Biden ended up after the presidential debate (+8).

[SunSeeker]

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