Support for former-Vice President Joe Biden plummeted 10 points following his disastrous primary debate performance on Thursday evening.
A poll of likely Democratic Party voters from the Morning Consult/FiveThirtyEight found that his support dropped from 41.5 percent prior to the debate to 31.5 percent.
Unlike Biden, support for Harris doubled after the debate — and many of her new supporters had previously been backing Biden.
“Harris’s second-night performance doubled her support; she went from just under 8 percent before Night 1 to almost 17 percent percent now,” the pollsters reported. “Much of that support came from voters who previously said they were backing Warren or Joe Biden. Speaking of Biden: He lost a bunch of voters — mostly to Harris, but also to Warren, Buttigieg and others.”
Harris did not hold back on the debate stage as she blasted Biden over his civil rights record — particularly his opposition to busing black students to predominantly white schools.
“I do not believe you are a racist and I agree with you when you commit yourself to the importance of finding common ground,” Harris said to Biden. “But I also believe, and it’s personal and I was actually very — it was hurtful to hear you talk about the reputations of two United States senators who built their reputations and career on the segregation of race in this country.”
Harris isn’t backing down, either.
“The characterization and the nostalgia about who they were I find to be misplaced, and it was hurtful to me to hear that they would be nostalgic about people who if they had their way I would not serve in the United States Senate,” Harris said during a subsequent interview on MSNBC. “On the heels of the history of extreme pain and damage, not to mention death, you have to draw the line.”
