The much-awaited first presidential debate between Republican candidate Donald Trump and his rival Vice President Kamala Harris, is now in the rearview mind. Despite detractors crying foul over Disney-owned ABC News siding with the latter, early reactions suggest Harris is the runaway winner of the face-off.

And Winner Is...:  Harris won hands down, with 63% of the registered voters who watched the debate picking her as the winner over Trump, who received the backing of only 37% of the respondents, results of a CNN flash poll conducted among debate watchers showed. When these respondents were probed who they had expected to win before the debate, the honors were evenly split.

The flash poll was sent via a text message to 605 registered U.S. voters who watched Tuesday's debate and these respondents were pre-selected using a survey of members of the SSRS Opinion Panel.

Incidentally, when Trump and President Joe Biden faced off in June, 67% of the respondents said the former outperformed his then-rival.

In 2020 and 2016, Biden and Hillary Clinton were seen by debate watchers as outperforming Trump across the presidential debates, CNN said.

Harris has made some inroads among independent voters, with her favorability view increasing six points from before the debate to 45%. On the contrary, Trump's favorability ratings eased two points to 39.

The survey respondents were closely divided over which candidate better understood the problems facing people like them, with 44% picking Harris and 40% choosing Trump, CNN said in the report.

Eighty-two percent of respondents said Tuesday's debate didn't affect their choice and 14% said they would reconsider but won't change their minds, while 4% said the debate changed their mind about whom they would vote for. Trump backers were modestly more likely than Harris supporters to say that the debate had left them reconsidering.

Harris Trails On Economy: Harris continued to trail Trump in her ability to handle the economy. The CNN poll of debate watchers showed the vice president behind by 20 points, with the tally 55%-35% tally in favor of the former president. The former president's advantage widened slightly after the debate.

Registered voters who watched Tuesday's debate are closely divided over which candidate better understands the problems facing people like them, according to a CNN poll of debate watchers conducted by SSRS, with 44% saying Harris does and 40% picking Trump.

Ahead of the debate, 43% said Trump had a better understanding of their problems while 39% said Harris did.

The pollster noted that the respondents were six points likelier to be Republican-aligned than Democratic-aligned, which translates to about four points more GOP-leaning than all registered voters nationally.

The poll's results reflect opinions of the debate only among those voters who tuned in and aren't representative of the views of the full voting public. Debate watchers in the poll were 6 points likelier to be Republican-aligned than Democratic-aligned, making for an audience that's about 4 percentage points more GOP-leaning than all registered voters nationally.