CNN Instant Poll: No clear winner in vice president debate between Tim Walz and JD Vance

CNN
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Registered voters who watched Tuesday's debate between vice presidential candidates Tim Walz and JD Vance had very different opinions about which candidate performed better, according to a CNN instant poll of debate watchers conducted by SSRS. The event left viewers with more positive views of both candidates than they had before the debate.

Among debate watchers, Walz remains the candidate who is perceived more positively and who better fits his needs and vision for the country. Vance, who suffers from a major image deficit with both viewers and the general public, increased his standing with the debate audience, exceeding expectations and gaining ground with the group that views him as qualified. It was also assumed that he defended his running mate better than Walz. The poll found that both men are viewed by the majority of debate watchers as qualified to assume the presidency if necessary. And practically none of the voters who tuned in saw the debate as a reason to change their vote.

After the debate, 51% of viewers said Vance did a better job, while 49% chose Walz. In a pre-debate poll of the same voters, Walz had a 54% to 45% lead over the candidate from whom they expected a stronger performance.

The sharply divided opinions over the outcome of Tuesday's debate stand in sharp contrast to the more emphatic audience reaction following this year's top debates. In June, two-thirds of debate watchers thought former President Donald Trump had outperformed President Joe Biden, while a 63 percent majority who watched the debate between Trump and Kamala Harris in September said the vice president did a better job have.

Views on the vice presidential candidates diverged broadly along predetermined political lines Tuesday night: 90% of debate watchers who supported Trump's candidacy said Vance did a better job, while a slightly narrower 82% of Harris supporters who tuned in said Walz saw the winner.

The results of the survey reflect only the opinions of the debate voters who tuned in and are not representative of the views of the entire electorate. Debate watchers in the survey were 3 percentage points more likely to be Democratic-leaning than Republicans, resulting in an audience that was about 5 points more Democratic-leaning than all registered voters nationally. That's a change from the audience at the two presidential debates this year, both of which were slightly more Republican-leaning than the potential American electorate as a whole. What voters who don't tune in hear about an event in the days that follow can often be just as impactful as immediate views of the event itself.

After the debate, 59% of debate watchers said they had a positive opinion of Walz, while only 22% viewed him unfavorably – an improvement over his already positive numbers among the same voters before the debate (46% positive, 32% negative). Debate watchers emerged from the debate with a near-neutral opinion of Vance: 41% rated him favorably and 44% rated him unfavorably. It's also an improvement from their view of Vance before the debate, when his ratings were well below this group (30% favorable, 52% unfavorable).

Among debate watchers, Walz's popularity increased significantly more among women than among men, while Vance's gains were about the same among voters of both genders. About one in five Trump supporters (21%) who tuned in say they have a positive view of Walz, while Vance's approval rating remains at just 8% among Harris' supporters.

In a pre-debate CNN poll of all Americans, views of Walz were just above water: 36% of voters viewed him favorably, 32% viewed him unfavorably, and a remarkable 33% said they had never heard of him or had no opinion at all about him. In contrast, views of Vance were more negative: 30% of registered voters viewed him favorably, 42% viewed him negatively, and 27% had no opinion of him.

A 65% majority of debate watchers now say Walz is qualified to serve as president if necessary, and 58% say the same about Vance. Before the debate, 62% of those same voters thought Walz was qualified to serve as president if necessary, and 50% thought Vance was qualified to do so.

Debate watchers said by 48% to 35% that Walz was more familiar with the needs and problems of people like them than Vance, and by a similar majority (48% to 39%), Walz was more likely than Vance to share her vision for America. The share of viewers who said both vice presidential hopefuls are in touch with their issues, 12% to 6%, is twice as large as the share who said neither is in touch with their issues – an unusual level in this year's election cycle of positivity.

There is a significant gender divide among viewers when it comes to which candidate better shares his vision for America: Walz has a clear advantage among female voters, with half of voters saying he does, compared to the 36% who see Vance's vision as closer to their own. Among male voters, the distribution is more even: 47% Walz and 43% Vance.

Viewers narrowly agreed (37% to 33%) that Vance did a better job than Walz in defending his running mate, with 27% saying each candidate did an equally good job and 3% saying none of them did this. Seven in 10 Trump supporters said Vance did a better job defending his vice president, while 57% of Harris supporters said Walz did the best.

Only a negligible 1% of voters who watched the debate said they had changed their minds about who to vote for, and Harris and Trump supporters were equally unlikely to view the event as decisive.

The CNN poll was conducted via text message among 574 registered U.S. voters who said they watched Tuesday's debate, and the poll results are representative only of the views of debate watchers. Respondents were recruited to participate prior to the debate and selected through a survey of members of the SSRS Opinion Panel, a nationally representative panel recruited using probability-based sampling techniques. The results for the entire sample of debate observers have a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 5.3 percentage points.