Almost Forgot To Tell You Who Won The Debates!

I think it was pretty obvious which candidates made a good impression and which candidates made a bad impression and which candidates made no impression at all. My own gut reaction for night one was that Elizabeth Warren cleaned up. No one came close— especially in the first half of the debate. I thought that Julian Castro made a good impression and so did de Blasio, Booker and Jay Inslee. Beto bombed. Klobuchar, Tulsi and Ryan were stiffs. Delaney was the worst. On night two, Biden bombed— as did Frackenlooper, Gillibrand and Pete. Kamala had the outstanding performance (although I was personally unimpressed) and Bernie, Bennet, Swalwell and Yang did alright. Marianne was a love it or hate it situation more than anyone else. That’s how I saw it. Now, let’s see what the viewers thought.

First a poll from Morning Consult for FiveThirtyEight. They measure each candidate’s favorably and unfavorabilty before and after.

Biden’s favorables (76.5% slipped a tiny bit to 75.6% but his unfavorables took a bit more of a hit— from 16.1% to 19.1%.

There wasn’t much movement in Bernieland but it was all good. His favorables went from 74.3% up to 76.3, so he now surpasses Biden. At the same time, his unfavorables went down a fractionally from 17.6% to 17.5%.

Elizabeth Warren had a great situation: Her favorables went from already high 63.4% to a significantly higher 71.4% and her unfavorables also dropped— from 13.5% to 12.5%.

Kamala also had a great night, with her 56.2% favorables going up to 66.9%, huge move, but in doing so, her unfavorables also rose, from 11.3% to 12.8% (worth the trade-off).

It was also a good night for Cory Booker, who vaulted over Beto and Pete. Cory’s 47.0% favorability is now 56.9%. His unfavorables went up from 13.1 to 15.0%.

McKinsey Pete broke out the full-on consultanese and many people bought it. He went from a 44.7 favorable to a 54.1%. His negatives went up though— from 9.5% to 13.3%.

Beto had slight upward movement and more significant downward movement. His 48.4% pre-debate favorability crept top to 50.8% but the unfavorable 12.5% went to 19.2%.

Julian Castro had the biggest movement of anyone— a pre-debate favorability of just 29.3% went to a more competitive 47.8%. Not everyone liked though; his unfavorability went from 9.3% to 11.7%.

Headlines like this one at CNN.com aren’t helping Biden either: Where's the beef? Biden lacks a compelling vision for America's future. “After weeks of damaging gaffes,” wrote Julian Zelizer, professor of history and public affairs at Princeton, “Joe Biden delivered a lackluster performance and stumbled during his first debate with the other Democratic candidates. Although one debate does not make or break a campaign, Biden's terrible performance was enough to raise concerns among Democrats about what his campaign is all about and whether he is really the most electable candidate on the bunch. Coming out of the Miami massacre, three big questions loom large about Biden.”

• What does he stand for?
• Is he the “most electable?”
• Is Biden the right Democrat for 2020?

“The Democrat who is most electable will need to define what post-Obama Democratic politics will be about. During the debates, Harris, Sen. Elizabeth Warren and Mayor Pete Buttigieg showed that they are thinking about the future of the party, not its past. In Trumpian fashion, Biden seems most centered on praising himself. He has considerable work ahead if he wants to fill out his vision of what Democratic politics will look like in years to come.”

So here’s the list of who Democratic primary voters like most and least— subtracting the negatives from the positives. (The number in parenthesis is the pre-debate number, which allows you to see , for example, that Kamala, Elizabeth Warren and Julian Castro gained a lot of ground, while Status Quo Joe and Beto lost ground).

1- Elizabeth Warren- 58.9% (49.9%)
2- Bernie- 58.8% (56.7%)
3- Biden- 56.5% (60.4%)
4- Kamala- 54.1% (44.9%)
5- Booker- 41.9% (33.9%)
6- Pete- 40.8% (35.2%)
7- Julian Castro- 36.1% (20.0%)
8- Beto- 31.6% (35.9%)
9- Klobuchar- 24.4% (19.9%)
10- Gillibrand- 23.5% (21.0%)
11-Yang- 15.0 (15.2%)
12- Inslee- 12.4% (9.1%)
13 (tie)- Tulsi- 10.6% (5.8%)
              Swalwell- 10.6% (9.8%)
15- Michael Bennet- 9.6% (8.6%)
16- Tim Ryan- 8.7% (7.7%)
17- Frackenlooper- 7.7% (7.5%)
18- Delaney- 6.7% (6.8%)
19- de Blasio- 2.4% (-2.1%)
20- Marianne- -2.3% (4.2%)

There’s another way to look at the results of the debates though— the change in the number of Twitter followers from the day before the debate to the day after the debate. That what this chart shows you. And you’ll notice that using that metric the top half dozen winners were Kamala, Julian, Pete, Yang, Marianne and Elizabeth Warren. The half dozen generating the least new Twitter followers: Delaney Beto, Swalwell, Ryan, Frackenlooper and Bennet.