On Thursday night in Atlanta, President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump will face off in the first public presidential debate in modern history. With the race between them extremely close, the stakes are high. Once the cameras go off, supporters and pundits alike will be quick to declare a "winner" and a "loser" based on their assessments of each candidate's performance
However, there's only one judge that truly matters: the American people. We won't really know who won the debate until we hear from them. That's why FiveThirtyEight is partnering once again with Ipsos to poll the same likely voters before and after the debate to see how – and if – their opinions on the 2024 election change. The charts below show the state of public opinion before the debate; on Friday, we will update this page with the results of our post-debate poll to see if anything has shifted
To gauge how well Americans think each candidate will perform in the debate, our poll asked likely voters to rate their expectations for Biden and Trump on a five-point scale from "excellent" to "poor." From this, we calculated the average expectation score for each candidate
According to our poll, conducted using Ipsos's KnowledgePanel, expectations are relatively low for both candidates, but especially for Biden. On average, likely voters gave him an expectation score of 2.58 out of 5, midway between "average" and "poor." This might work to Biden's advantage; if he performs moderately well in the debate, he will exceed the expectations of many Americans
Biden's low expectation score may be tied to concerns about his age and Republican efforts to portray him as doddering and inept. We also asked our poll participants to rate the candidates' fitness for office on a similar five-point scale. On average, they gave Biden a 2.3 out of 5 for physical fitness and a 2.4 out of 5 for mental fitness. He scored higher, at 2.8 out of 5, for emotional fitness
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To get an idea of the potential support each candidate might receive from the debate, we asked voters which candidates they are considering voting for. Note that this was not a traditional horse race poll; respondents could indicate they are considering multiple candidates. Additionally, all figures in this article exclude respondents who skipped the question, which is why our numbers sometimes differ slightly from those on the Ipsos website
In this tight race, roughly the same percentage of likely voters said they are considering voting for Biden (44.5 percent) as said they are considering voting for Trump (44.8 percent). Meanwhile, 18.5 percent of likely voters said they are considering independent candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who did not qualify for the debate
Our poll also asked whether voters have a favorable or unfavorable opinion of each candidate. Unsurprisingly, both Biden and Trump are unpopular: Biden's net favorability rating is -21.4 percentage points, while Trump's is slightly better at -17.1 percentage points. Kennedy is also underwater, with a net favorability rating of -19.5 points, but many likely voters (27 percent) have no opinion of him or have never heard of him
Many voters have a positive view of Trump but not Biden or vice versa, but a significant percentage – 21 percent, according to our poll – dislike both major candidates. These voters, often called "double haters," face a difficult choice in November, and how they vote could determine the outcome of the election. However, our poll indicates that many of them will not vote for Kennedy: among double haters, he has a 24 percent favorable rating and a 42 percent unfavorable rating, meaning many voters are actually triple haters
We also asked likely voters about the issues that will have the greatest impact on how they vote this fall. Respondents could choose up to three issues from a list of 18. The most common response was inflation or rising costs, mentioned by 50 percent of likely voters as one of their top issues, followed by immigration (37 percent) and political extremism or polarization (25 percent)
Prioritizing these issues plays to Trump's strengths. Our poll also asked voters which candidate they think is best equipped to handle some of these issues, and voters trust Trump more than Biden on inflation or rising costs (55 percent to 45 percent) and immigration (56 percent to 44 percent). Meanwhile, voters saw Biden as more capable of handling some lower-priority issues, such as political extremism or polarization (54 percent to 46 percent) and abortion (57 percent to 43 percent). We will ask voters this same question after Thursday's debate to see if the candidates can change Americans' perceptions of their ability to handle these issues