We’ve done a lot of post-debate analysis unpacking the findings from the panel survey we conducted with Morning Consult. But while we’ve looked at how respondents as a whole rated the candidates’ performances, we also wondered: How did each candidate’s supporters rate the performances of each of the seven front-runners?1 (Hint: There were two candidates who everyone thought seemed to do well — Kamala Harris and Elizabeth Warren.)
Perhaps unsurprisingly, each candidate’s highest rating came from his or her own supporters. While Harris and Warren got good grades across the board — generally, an average debate performance score of 3.9 or higher on a scale of 1 to 5 — Joe Biden and Beto O’Rourke, in particular, did not do well with other supporters. (Even their own supporters rated their debate performances lower than other supporters rated the performances of their candidates.) And as for the undecided voters in our survey, they, too, were most impressed with Harris and Warren — and least taken with O’Rourke.
From ABC News:
FiveThirtyEight democratic debate poll
CORRECTION (July 3, 2019, 2:30 p.m.): A previous version of this post incorrectly said that the supporters of each candidate gave that candidate the highest rating. The candidates got their best marks from their own supporters, but some of those supporters gave other candidates higher ratings.