Harris Surges in Polls After Debate Performance

Sen. Kamala Harris was widely credited with having a good debate Thursday night—and it has resulted in a bump in the polls. According to Morning Consult, the senator's support doubled among Democratic primary voters after the debate, going from 6% to 12%. The surge in support has put her ahead of Pete Buttigieg and she is now tied for third place with Sen. Elizabeth Warren, Politico reports. Joe Biden is still the frontrunner, with 33%, according to the poll, but that is down 5 points from before the debate. Bernie Sanders remains in second place with 19%.

Harris, who confronted Biden about his record on racial issues including busing, also gained the most Twitter followers of any of the 20 candidates in the debates, reports FiveThirtyEight, though there has been a backlash from those who thought she was too hard on the former vice president. George Skelton at the Los Angeles Times writes that California's Democratic voters may be been "the real losers" in the Democratic debates—she now appears certain to win the state's primary, he writes, meaning that her rivals may now be unlikely to spend time and money trying to court the state's voters before the March 3 primary. (Biden has pushed back against criticism of his civil rights record.)