Real winners and losers of the debate, among people who watched the debate

Heading into the fifth Democratic debate, polls showed that Joe Biden was still the clear frontrunner but the field is stacked with compelling candidates who resonate with niche audiences. An Ipsos/FiveThirtyEight poll talked to likely Democratic voters to find out who debate watchers felt were the winners and losers of the Atlanta debate.

This poll talked to the same individuals before and after the debate. Here, we look at whether individuals changed their minds about how favorably they view the candidates and if they would consider voting for them.

In terms of overall favorability a number of the second tier candidates saw a big improvement. Corey Booker (16% net improvement in favorability) led the way, following by Pete Buttigieg (14%), Klobuchar (14%), Andrew Yang (12%). Kamala Harris saw a more modest but still significant improvement in favorability at 8%.

Pete Buttigieg saw the greatest change in potential support, with an 8% increase. Harris and Klobuchar also did well, growing their support by 6%. Booker and Yang both got a 5% bump as well.

The losers of the night actually appear to be the three current frontrunners. Elizabeth Warren did not garner much additional favorability for herself and in fact experienced a 4% drop in support after the debate. Biden and Sanders’ performances appear to have been deemed less than thrilling by debate-watchers, as the two frontrunners saw a 1% drop in support post-debate.

In short, the candidates who were leading the polls going in failed to generate much excitement about their platforms. This analysis indicates that Sanders, Biden and Warren “lost” among debate viewers; while Buttigieg, Klobuchar, Booker and Yang “won,” relative to where they began the night.