WASHINGTON — Joe Biden's national lead over President Donald Trump nearly doubled after Tuesday's presidential debate, with voters saying by 2-to-1 that Biden has the better temperament to be president, according to a new NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll.
The poll was conducted in the two days after the unruly and insult-filled debate Tuesday but before Trump tested positive for Covid-19 and was hospitalized Friday at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center.
Biden is now ahead of Trump by 14 points among registered voters, 53 percent to 39 percent — up from his 8-point lead in the previous poll, before the debate.
The 14-point advantage represents Biden's largest lead in the NBC News/WSJ poll during the entire campaign; his previous high was 11 points in July.
"The clear loser from the debate was Donald Trump," said Democratic pollster Jeff Horwitt of Hart Research Associates, who conducted the survey with Republican pollster Bill McInturff of Public Opinion Strategies.
"And at least for the short term, this has damaged his standing against Joe Biden," Horwitt added.
But McInturff, the Republican pollster, cautioned that the survey could represent a "shock to the system" right after a consequential debate. (Democrats, for example, hold a 9-point advantage in party identification in the poll, compared to 5- to 6-point advantages in previous ones.)
As a result, McInturff said, the race could return to the stable 8- to 9-point margin it has essentially been at over the last several months — which is still a difficult place for an incumbent four weeks before Election Day.
The biggest declines for Trump were among seniors (who now back Biden by 62 percent to 35 percent) and suburban women (58 percent to 33 percent).
And men 50 years and older moved to a 1-point advantage for Biden in the latest poll, compared to a 13-point advantage for Trump in the pre-debate NBC News/WSJ poll.
Voters say Biden did a better job at the debate by 2-to-1
Forty-nine percent of voters say Biden did a better job at Tuesday's debate, which was marked by insults, interruptions, falsehoods and personal attacks — most, although not all, coming from the president.
That's compared with 24 percent who say Trump did better. Another 17 percent say neither did a better job.
In addition, 19 percent of voters say they're more likely to support Biden after the debate, compared to 6 percent who say they're more likely to back Trump.
The vast majority — 73 percent — say the debate made no difference in how they'd vote.
Among the 49 percent who say Biden did a better job, many voters cited Trump's performance when asked to describe what they thought was important at the debate.
"Basically, last night was a snapshot of the last three and a half years. Not being able to say anything about white supremacists, being negative and being unpresidential," one respondent said.
Another voter, who thought Biden did a better job, said: "I just think it was the same old Trump. He was bullying."
Even among the 24 percent who say Trump did the better job, the responses were as much about the president's performance as Biden's.
