Could it have been worse?

Among people who viewed Thursday's debate, 60% thought that Trump won and only 21% thought that Biden won.  In this post, I look at popular judgements after some other debates.   The questions all have the same basic form "who would you say did the best job--or won."  Except when indicated, they were asked only of people who watched the debates (or listened on the radio).  I list the figures for the Democrat first, the Republican second, and both equal as third.  They don't add to 100%, because there were some who said that they weren't sure or couldn't say.  The fourth column is the size of the gap between the "winner" and "loser."  

10/17-24 1960:            36%    32%      24%             4%

This was the last of four debates.  The first debate is widely remembered as a big win for Kennedy, but I couldn't find any surveys that asked about it.  

  

10/28            1980:      36%    44%       14%             8%
10/29-30       1980:     26%    34%       31%              8%

10/30-11/01 1980:      25%    38%        25%           13%

This was the only Carter-Reagan debate (there was a Reagan-Anderson one in September).  It's remembered for Reagan's "there you go again" line, which some people implausibly say changed the outcome of the election.   More people saw Reagan as the winner, but it wasn't a big gap.  

10/7/1984              :      38%     35%        13%               3%
10/7/1984              :      43%     34%        16%               9%
10/10-12/1984              64%     12%        21%             52%

The first debate in 1984 is remembered as a disaster for Reagan.  But the two surveys taken right after the debate showed only a small edge for Mondale--one taken several days later showed a big gap.  That point suggests that media coverage made a difference--that some people who initially thought Reagan did a decent job changed their minds after hearing discussion (a survey on October 9 which included people who hadn't watched it but had heard or read about it also found a big margin in favor of Mondale).  

10/7/1996                    50%      29%      19%                  21%
10/10-13 1996             62%      17%      14%                  45%

Some people have said that incumbent presidents always do badly in the first debate, but Clinton easily prevailed over Dole in 1996.  

10/3/2012                    22%      46%       32%                 24%

10/7-9/2012                 14%      75%         6%                 61%

Obama's first debate against Romney in 2012 is remembered as a bad performance, and that's how people saw it at the time.  

The 39% gap in perceptions of the 2024 debate is not the biggest ever, but it's bigger than the gap in surveys taken immediately after any of the debates I've looked at.  Although there are only a few cases, it seems like there's a tendency for the gap to grow as people discuss and see media coverage of the debate.  That suggests that things will get worse for Biden in the next few days (or maybe have already gotten worse since I started this post yesterday).

[Data from the Roper Center for Public Opinion Research]