Joe Biden’s stumbling performance in the first presidential debate left a large majority of viewers believing that Donald Trump came out on top, according to a flash CNN poll.
According to the news network’s poll on Thursday night, 67 percent of viewers felt that Trump put in a better performance than 33 percent for Biden.
Before the event in Atlanta, the same voters said, 55 percent to 45 percent, that they expected Trump to turn in a better performance than Biden.
Biden, whose campaign said was suffering from a cold, struggled in the debate, stumbling over answers, rambling, and appearing to have low energy.
The network said that the results were a shift away from polls in 2020 that showed debate watchers felt Biden got the better of Trump during their presidential debates.
But on Thursday night, 57 percent of those watching the debate said they had no real confidence in Biden’s ability to lead the US, while 44 percent said they had no confidence in Trump to do the same.
CNN says that the text message poll was conducted with 565 registered voters in the US who watched the debate.
Following the debate there were reports of “deep panic” among Democrats over Biden’s performance, with some calling for the president to be replaced as the party’s nominee.
California governor Gavin Newsom was asked after the event about the possibility of him taking over as the candidate to go against Trump.
“I will never turn my back on President Biden. Never turn my back on President Biden, I don’t know a Democrat in my party that would do so,” he said
“And especially after tonight, we have his back, we run not the 90 yard dash. We’re all in, we’re going to double down in the next few months. We’re gonna win this election.”
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