By a two-to-one margin, voters who watched Thursday night’s debate say Donald Trump outperformed Joe Biden, according to a CNN flash poll.
The poll shows 67 percent of debate watchers say Trump turned in the better performance, while 33 percent said the president did. That’s a slightly stronger performance for Trump than expectations suggested going into the debate.
The same voters, interviewed before the debate, said they expected Trump to do better, 55 percent to 45 percent for Biden.
The poll was conducted by text message among 565 registered voters who said they watched Thursday’s debate. Because this is a poll of debate watchers — and not the overall electorate — it is not necessarily representative of broader public opinion.
CNN says the voters who responded to the poll were slightly more Republican than the nation overall.
