Blog Post

An understandable level of concern over President Biden’s reelection prospects has been growing since his poor debate performance last week. Newspaper editorial boards and even some Democratic officials have called for him to step aside, saying that they think Biden can no longer win in November.

Given the intensity of interest in that question, Working America has focused for several days on collecting feedback about the debate at the front doors of working-class voters in battleground states. What we’re seeing is that these voters judged Biden and Trump poorly in the debate – BUT only if they saw it. 

• Among a total of 6,879 respondents from Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin, half (50%) reported not following the debate at all.
• Among those who did follow, Biden received a passing grade (A, B, or C) from 43% of voters while only 32% of voters said Trump passed. However, this was expected to be a favorable audience for Biden, as our sample came from neighborhoods which backed Biden in 2020 by 78% of the vote.
• When we narrow our sample to the 2,464 respondents from the “blue wall” states of Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin, things are less favorable for Biden. Even though these voters came from neighborhoods which backed Biden by 72% in 2020, he received a passing grade from only 35% of them, compared to Trump’s 36%.
• But even in these “blue wall” states, 45% of voters did not follow the debate.

This data suggests that Biden faces a challenge not just among elite party powerbrokers, but also among disillusioned working-class Democratic voters. They were still not drawn to Trump, but their confidence in Biden has been shaken. 

But this data also challenges the dominant political narrative, which argues that Biden’s debate performance caused irrevocable harm to his candidacy from which he cannot recover. Instead, we see that battleground state voters were mostly not tuned into the election yet, and those who watched were equally not impressed by Trump.

Voters agreed with many of the common criticisms of the candidates, indicating profound disappointment with Biden’s lack of energy and Trump’s lack of honesty. 

While it is too early to say how these challenges will ultimately be resolved, what is clear is that we are reminded once again that voters on the ground processed the campaigns’ events in very different ways than political elites, which could make all of the difference in what will undoubtedly be a close election.

We will be listening at the doors in the weeks to come, as well as beginning our own efforts to communicate to voters the value of supporting a working-class agenda. There’s months left of intense campaigning to go and we don’t expect this to be the last major development, by far.  

See you on the doors, 

Matt