- JL Partners surveyed 1,000 likely voters and asked them if they wanted a second debate.
Ask any of the Donald Trump fans at his Wednesday night rally on Long Island whether he should debate Kamala Harris again and the answer is unanimous: yes.
“I think you should try it,” said Andrew Peters, 49, a body shop owner, wearing a T-shirt with the phrase “Fuck Hamas.” “What do you have to lose?”
Trump has repeatedly dismissed the idea after declaring himself the winner of last week’s televised showdown.
But a JL Partners poll for DailyMail.com finds American voters are overwhelmingly in favour of seeing the two candidates face each other for a second time, including a clear majority of Trump’s own supporters.
The poll of 1,000 likely voters found that 63 percent said they should meet again on the debate stage.
Only 19 percent said it was not necessary.
Among Republicans alone, 54 percent wanted a second debate, and that number rose to 59 percent of those who said they intended to vote for Trump himself in November.
Harris was widely seen as having outperformed Trump at last week’s ABC debate in Philadelphia, with pundits, focus groups and a DailyMail.com snap poll suggesting she had managed to get under the former president’s skin.
Not surprisingly, more than 70 percent of Democrats said they would like to see the two face each other again.
Harris’s campaign even challenged Trump to a second debate just minutes after the first one ended.
But Trump quickly rejected it.
“When a boxer loses a fight, the first words out of his mouth are ‘I want a rematch,'” he posted on his platform Truth Social.
James Johnson, co-founder of JL Partners, said it was perhaps no surprise that voters wanted to see more from both candidates.
“Voters feel there’s been more heat than light in this campaign, so it’s no surprise they want to see more of the candidates and try to get more details about their plans,” he said.
Trump and Harris faced off for more than 90 minutes in the ABC News debate last Tuesday
‘Roughly one in ten likely voters remain undecided, and we know from our Daily Mail post-debate poll that independents want to know more about Harris’s agenda in particular.’
Trump was in New York on Wednesday night, entertaining thousands of supporters at the Nassau Veterans Memorial Coliseum on Long Island.
Speaking to DailyMail.com before the event began, Robert Anderson spoke for many when he said the moderators at the first debate were biased against Trump.
He said he was in favor of a second debate if it came with guarantees, and that Trump was on equal terms.
“I think if they had a neutral party like Fox or Newsmax… Greg Kelly as the moderator, I think everyone would welcome that,” he said, referring to the Newsmax host.
“I think everyone sees that the first debate was so one-sided that I think people would be welcome to participate in it.”
JL Partners surveyed 800 independent voters who watched last week’s debate. Voters said Kamala Harris made them feel hopeful and confident, but also angry.
Fox News had proposed September 17 for a third debate, but the date came and went without any agreement being reached.
Johnson said it was clear that Trump supporters wanted him to appear at another debate.
“If she can learn from her past mistakes — toning down the rhetoric, resisting falling for Harris’s taunts and attacking her opponent on the issues — she could turn things around and remove Harris’s unquestionable momentum from the first debate,” he said.
“But there’s a complication: Does anyone believe Trump is actually capable of doing that? If the campaign’s view is that he can’t, then the best political advice might be to forgo a runoff against Harris.”