Poll: Bloomberg Down Only Slightly After Debate Disaster

Here’s the first of the post-debate polls I’ve been waiting for:

The good news for Mike Bloomberg is that debates seldom affect poll numbers much. So even though he bombed horribly, he only went down three points in the post-debate poll. He still has plenty of time to dust himself off and do better in next week’s debate.

BTW, it’s obvious that I was way out of step in my assessment of Bloomberg’s performance. Even my friends are laughing at me. I think a couple of things explain it. First, I tend to discount loud attacks because I’ve seen them so many times before and they bore me. So the fact that Warren went hard after Bloomberg didn’t really affect me much. Second, I assumed going in that Bloomberg would be attacked mercilessly, so I had already priced that in. His listless response merely meant that he had done a little more poorly than I expected, not that he had bombed.

The rest of the world obviously disagrees, giving Bloomberg approximately a -5 on a scale of 1 to 10. But I have to admit that even two days later I’ve only moved a little bit. I’ll concede that Bloomberg did worse than I thought, but I still don’t think it was a catastrophic performance. But he’d better improve next week.

PLEASE—BEFORE YOU CLICK AWAY!

“Lying.” “Disgusting.” “Scum.” “Slime.” “Corrupt.” “Enemy of the people.” Donald Trump has always made clear what he thinks of journalists. And it’s plain now that his administration intends to do everything it can to stop journalists from reporting things it doesn’t like—which is most things that are true.

We’ll say it loud and clear: At Mother Jones, no one gets to tell us what to publish or not publish, because no one owns our fiercely independent newsroom. But that also means we need to directly raise the resources it takes to keep our journalism alive. There’s only one way for that to happen, and it’s readers like you stepping up. Please do your part and help us reach our $150,000 membership goal by May 31.

payment methods

PLEASE—BEFORE YOU CLICK AWAY!

“Lying.” “Disgusting.” “Scum.” “Slime.” “Corrupt.” “Enemy of the people.” Donald Trump has always made clear what he thinks of journalists. And it’s plain now that his administration intends to do everything it can to stop journalists from reporting things it doesn’t like—which is most things that are true.

We’ll say it loud and clear: At Mother Jones, no one gets to tell us what to publish or not publish, because no one owns our fiercely independent newsroom. But that also means we need to directly raise the resources it takes to keep our journalism alive. There’s only one way for that to happen, and it’s readers like you stepping up. Please do your part and help us reach our $150,000 membership goal by May 31.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate