By Dave Andrusko
With less than eight weeks to go until the November 5 presidential election, needless to say there is plenty to write about.
In “Further thoughts on Tuesday’s presidential debate” we went beyond the pro-Harris take taken by the Legacy Media. (Hint: for all their bravado, they are plenty worried.]
In this post, we’ll investigate four key factors going forward.
#1. For all practical purposes, there’s been no movement in the polls. What there is suggests what you might have expected: most people are dug in, for Trump or for Harris.
However, as A.G. Gancarski reported
The Insider Advantage survey conducted Wednesday and Thursday morning shows the former president with a 49% to 48% lead in Michigan, an advantage that includes a 5-point lead with independents, per pollster Matt Towery. …
“The poll also showed a slightly higher amount of support for Trump among African-Americans (around 20%), which may be an aberration, or a reflection of higher African-American numbers seen in recent national surveys such as The New York Times survey,” Towery adds.
That 20% threshold is significant, given Trump campaign surrogates told The [New York] Post this summer they hope to get 25% to 30% of the black-male vote. The former president garnered just 12% of the black vote in 2020.
#2. Trump’s almost mystical hold on his supporters. Sasha Stone writes
I don’t know what it is about Trump that so many people love as much as they do, flaws and all. It’s something that can’t be described. But if I had to guess, it would be that feeling sympathy is something we can’t help. We see him surviving their unprecedented attacks against him, and something in us fights to resist going along with it.
And that something is our collective humanity, something we’ve lost at the hands of the Left, who pick and choose who is and who isn’t worthy of empathy and decency.
Trump might not have performed well on Tuesday. He missed many opportunities to drop the mic against Harris, but in the end, I’m not sure it mattered.
That’s the trouble with debates on television. True when it was Kennedy against Nixon, Romney against Obama, Hillary against Trump, Harris against Trump. Winning a debate is one thing. Winning over the people is entirely another.
#3. Miranda Devine captures something that was running around in the back of my mind as I watched the debate but couldn’t articulate:
The smart analysis of the first — and maybe only — debate of the Trump-Harris presidential cycle is that Donald Trump blew it.
The former president, winging it as usual, missed numerous “kill shots,” was frustratingly imprecise and allowed himself to be baited by Kamala Harris.
But on the optics, Harris committed far worse self-harm.
If you switched off the sound for the ABC debate Tuesday night and just watched the images, you would come away feeling deep distaste for the haughty flibbertigibbet who kept making faces while Trump was speaking.
Harris’ split-screen pantomime made her seem unserious and unlikable and was clearly designed for the sort of viral “Brat Girl” moments on social media her juvenile campaign staff imagines are vote winners. Kween!
In reality, the novelty value is short-lived and even the Taylor Swift demographic will come to see it as unbecoming.
Cool aunt, sure, but president?
Far from being a masterstroke, Harris’ many faces only reinforced the fatal inauthenticity of the rest of her debate performance, which was a string of memorized set pieces with little relevance to the question being asked, and delivered in an odd staccato.
Nope.
Margaret Thatcher she is not.
Far from being a masterstroke, Harris’ many faces only reinforced the fatal inauthenticity of the rest of her debate performance, which was a string of memorized set pieces with little relevance to the question being asked, and delivered in an odd staccato.
Walter Kirn perceptive argues that
I think Trump won the moment, if not “the debate.” It’s odd, but I really think so. Corporate media outed itself, a magician which overly exposed its tricks. The swing voters the candidates were vying for noticed this. What they didn’t get was any acknowledgement of their plight, or the country’s, by Harris. Or any idea of her plans. Nothing to grab onto.
#4. Kimberley A. Strassel keenly leans into what the Establishment Media found in their own focus groups:
Reuters interviewed 10 swing voters after the event and gave the story an intriguing headline: “Some undecided voters not convinced by Harris after debate with Trump.” That’s one way to put it. “Six said afterward they would now either vote for Trump or were leaning toward backing him,” the piece explains. One remained undecided. Three backed Ms. Harris.
A New York Times interview of eight undecided voters after the debate found two leaning toward Mr. Trump, one toward Ms. Harris, the rest extremely confused. CNN, BBC and Wall Street Journal interviews with uncommitted voters produced similar mixed results.
These voters’ responses highlight Ms. Harris’s problems. She has succeeded in dodging questions about her past and her agenda and she did so again Tuesday night. The press raved over her deftness. But whoops. Five of the Reuters interviewees faulted her for failing to explain how she’d help improve the economy—their top issue. “There was no real meat and bones for her plan,” said a 61-year-old entrepreneur from Florida, who is now leaning toward Mr. Trump. A Nevada resident said he also moved toward Mr. Trump after hearing Ms. Harris tell him “not to vote for Donald Trump instead of why she’s the right candidate.” At least Mr. Biden in his basement spoke to the issue that in 2020 was voters’ top concern: Covid. Ms. Harris is AWOL on the economy.
Finally, the New York Times, in a separate story, interviewed voters who had not made up their minds yet. They talked to one man who had voted for Obama and then for Trump.
As he watched post-debate commentary on cable news, Mr. Henderson said he bristled at the pundits who widely panned Mr. Trump’s performance. Had they watched the same debate, he wondered?
See you on Monday.