The latest polling from Rasmussen Reports shows no debate fallout for Donald Trump. The former president still leads sitting Vice President Kamala Harris nationally by two points, 49 to 47 percent.
“This is our first survey to fully reflect the impact of the September 10 televised debate between the two candidates,” writes Rasmussen, “and there has been no major change since last week when Trump held the same 49% to 47% lead over Harris.”
At the beginning of September, in this same poll, Trump led Harris by only a single point. He has held a two-point lead for two weeks in a row now.
Rasmussen surveyed 1,855 likely voters on September 12 and 15-18. The debate was held on September 10.
The internals look very good for Trump. He earns 30 percent of black support to Kamala’s 65 percent. (That should be closer to 12 to 88 percent.) He is only down with Hispanics by four points, 44 to 48 percent. He leads with independents by four points, 49 to 45 percent.
In the age demo, Harris leads by only a single point among 18-39 year-olds, 47 to 46 percent. Among those 40-64 years old, Trump is up 51 to 45 percent. Kamala narrowly leads with the 65 and older crowd, 50 to 47 percent.
That partisan breakdown is 35 percent Democrats, 33 percent Republicans, and 32 percent “other” or independent.
Rasmussen is the second top pollster to show no statistical fallout from Trump’s awful debate performance. The latest New York Times/Siena poll had Trump up by a single point before the debate. Today, this same pollster shows the race tied at 47 percent.
Trump did appear to be gaining on Harris prior to the debate. If anything, his performance blunted that momentum. Nevertheless, Harris has been unable to capitalize on winning the debate. What had been a tie race is still a tie race. This should worry Democrats more than Republicans. As we saw in 2016 and 2020, Trump is a very good election closer. And if the polls in this election are half as bad as they were in 2016 and 2020, Trump will win easily.
With six weeks to go before Election Day, it should be interesting to see if Harris can run out the clock without offering voters actual specifics about her agenda. Because Democrats got it good, the corporate media might make note of her refusal to get specific, but they will never pressure her for specifics or make her pay a political price.
If she could offer up an attractive agenda, that debate might have closed the deal for her. Obviously, she wants to keep the focus on Trump so this election is a referendum on him. But it’s still a risky and very dishonest strategy.
John Nolte’s first and last novel, Borrowed Time, is winning five-star raves from everyday readers. You can read an excerpt here and an in-depth review here. Also available in hardcover and on Kindle and Audiobook.
