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How Trump Could Have Won the Debate
Virtually every sane person can agree that the first presidential debate was disastrous and chaotic. The chaos makes it hard to say what meaning the debate will have in the context of the presidential race. The flailing of the debate could convince people more than ever that it is time for change. The chaos of the government could be turned towards opportunity. On the other hand, the chaos of Tuesday being exhausting and discouraging like so much else, voters could decide engagement is pointless. This outcome is most assuredly Trump’s best path to winning.
The breakdown is that neither candidate gained many new voters. Nothing substantive happened (even if, I’ll get to this, Trump was largely the reason for this). It was essentially battle stations for the two candidates, trading barbs rather than anything substantive. In this scenario, voters are inclined to simply stick with the candidate they already favor. Polling after the debate largely supports this idea. A CNBC/Change research poll found that 53% of likely voters thought Biden won versus only 29% for Trump. However, in the only category that matters, whether someone’s vote will change, only 2% said that it would. Lending even more support to this idea the CBS news battleground tracker found 48% of viewers thought Biden won, 41% of viewers thought Trump won, and 10% thought the debate was a tie. This largely matches up with…
