Last Wednesday, the RNC held its first Republican primary debate with eight qualified candidates participating. The frontunner, however, former and potentially future President Donald Trump, was notably absent. He's going to skip out on future debates, too, if he sticks to his TruthSocial post from last week. It's long been considered that the race for the nomination will come down to two men, Trump and Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL), though Vivek Ramaswamy has been gaining on DeSantis in certain polls. Now that we've had that first debate, and with the second one just under a month away, let's see if the status of the race remains where it was.
A poll from Morning Consult released on Thursday, just after the debate, found Trump still with a commanding lead of 58 percent support. "The first Republican presidential debate did nothing to change former President Donald Trump’s formidable lead over his rivals for the party’s 2024 nomination," the poll's write-up noted.
DeSantis' support of 14 percent also remained unchanged. Ramaswamy went up 1 point, from having 10 percent support pre-debate, to 11 percent support post-debate. That's within the plus or minus 3 percentage point margin of error though.
Such a find might be surprising, given that a previous Morning Consult poll found that most potential Republican primary voters, including Trump supporters, wanted Trump to participate in the debates.
"It shows that the Republican front-runner paid no price for skipping the debate even though most potential primary voters did want him to attend," the poll's write-up noted about the results.
If you’re disappointed in Trump not participating in RNC debates, a Morning Consult poll found you’re not alone! Other campaigns are noticing too, as DeSantis spokeswoman @CarlyAtch called out Trump campaign for not campaigning. https://t.co/x3cCEIMJa5
— Rebecca Downs (@RebeccaRoseGold) August 22, 2023
That poll was conducted August 18-20, and then on August 24, with at least 1,256 potential Republican primary voters.
Nevertheless, DeSantis' debate performance did provide his campaign with a reason to celebrate. And Morning Consult wasn't the only one putting out post-debate polls.
According to a poll conducted by The Washington Post, FiveThirtyEight, and Ipsos, a plurality, at 29 percent, of possible Republican voters who watched the debate said that DeSantis performed best at the debate. Ramaswamy was not far behind at 26 percent, which is within the plus or minus 4 percent margin of error.
When it comes to who they're considering voting for in the primary, Trump still enjoys a lead among overall primary voters, with 64 percent to DeSantis' 51 percent. It's DeSantis, however, who has a small lead among those who watched the debate, with 67 percent to Trump's 61 percent.
The campaign for Nikki Haley, the former governor of South Carolina and former UN ambassador, also touted the results of the poll, given that they showed her with 29 potential percent support before the debate among possible Republican voters who watched the debate, to 46 potential percent after the debate. Fifteen percent thought she performed best in the debate. No other participating candidate received double digit respondents saying as much. Her favorability ratings also increased from 51 percent to 65 percent.
"Haley showed the most improvement when it came to the share of Republicans who say they would consider voting for her," the poll's write-up in The Washington Post noted. "Haley boosted her favorability rating by 14 points, putting her in clear positive territory. Sixty-five percent hold a favorable opinion of her, and her unfavorable ratings [of 27 percent] barely budged," the write-up also mentioned.
It was still DeSantis, however, who enjoyed the highest favorability ratings among Republican primary voters who watched the debate, at 72 percent. Haley's boost puts her in second place in this category, ahead of Trump's 59 percent favorable ratings.
Ramaswamy went from 40 to 46 percent potential support among debate watchers. While his favorable ratings increased from 50 to 60 percent among, his unfavorable ratings also increased, from 13 percent to 32 percent.
The poll conducted before the debate, from August 15-22, included a random sample of 4,968 Americans who say they're likely to vote in their state's Republican primary or caucus. For this sample, there's a margin of error of plus or minus 1.6 percentage points. After the debate, 775 potential Republican primary or caucus voters who watched some or all of the debate were polled August 23 and August 24, and have a margin of error of plus or minus 4 percentage points.
Overall, RealClearPolitics (RCP) still has Trump leading the pack. He's currently at 53 percent support, for a spread of +40.0. It's a bit of a dip for him, but DeSantis, who is currently at 13 percent support, has experienced dips as well. Ramaswamy, with his 7.5 percent, and Haley, now in fourth place with her 5.0 percent, have both seen a bit of a boost.
