The Trump vs. Harris Presidential Debate (Probably) Matters More Than Most...Again – Top 3 Takeaways – September 10th, 2024
- It’s go time...for real this time. In setting up for tonight’s presidential debate I began by revisiting my thoughts and perspectives heading into the first presidential debate. My headline for the first CNN debate was that the presidential debate (probably) mattered more than most previously had. Wow did that ever prove to be true. This one potentially will too – but for clearly different reasons...more on that in moment but first... What I realized is that I was ahead of my time and Tim Walz (the real weirdo), in defining this election season as being weird. In my top three takeaways from the first debate day, June 27th, I started out by asking this... How weird is it that it’s not even Independence Day and we’re having a presidential debate? Very weird. How odd is it that we’ve not had the political conventions – where each party’s candidate is actually decided – prior to having a presidential debate? It’s very odd. How strange is it that Joe Biden showered with his daughter (according to his daughter)? Sorry, that’s aside from the point. So, the answer is that it’s so weird and so odd that we’re having a debate on June 27th because no debate has ever taken place before July 4th, the political conventions or actually before September 21st (the first Reagan-Carter debate in 1980). Tonight’s presidential debate is the earliest in American history by 86 days. So that was then. And here we are now with the ability to add to the rundown of weirdness and oddities of this election season. How weird is it that Donald Trump is set to debate a second Democrat presidential candidate in this cycle? Extremely weird, it’s never happened. How odd is it that the Democrat’s presidential nominee, in two presidential campaigns no less, never won a single state in a primary? Very odd, it had never happened since the major political parties opened the nomination process to voters. How strange is Kamala’s cackle? I’ll let you decide. By the way, maybe that’s the drinking game tonight. Every time Kamala cackles you throw one back... Oh and btw, since the first debate with the first candidate and the second debate with the second candidate, Donald Trump was also shot in an assassination attempt. That’s one more thing that’s never happened. And, tonight’s presidential debate, which is the second of this cycle, is still happening 11 days earlier than the earliest presidential debate to have happened prior to this cycle. But nevertheless, no matter how weird Tim Walz, Kamala Harris and this election cycle may be...it is go time for real this time. Just as Donald Trump knocked Joe Biden out of the presidential race during the first debate, he’s entering this debate in a position to effectively be able to do so with a strong showing against the Democrat’s backup candidate in this debate. As for the vice president...in two presidential campaigns Kamala Harris has never won so much as a single state in a presidential primary, let alone a presidential debate. Since being handed the Democrat Party nomination she’s not done any press conferences and only one canned interview, with CNN and her emotional support animal (as CNN’s Scott Jennings said). Many Americans either aren’t familiar with her positions on the issues, because she’s done her level best to avoid addressing any issues, and/or they're confused about what her position on the issues is today and whether she’s changed her position on them since yesterday – since flip flopping on everything from building the border wall to banning plastic straws. Rasmussen’s most recent polling on her flip-flops reveals that nearly two-thirds of voters believe that what her position was prior to becoming the Democrat’s nominee is her real position on the issues. And speaking of the polls and the issues...
- Let’s look at what’s changed since the first debate (other than the Democrat’s presidential candidate). On June 27th, the date of the first presidential debate, Donald Trump averaged a national polling lead in the RealClear Politics average of 1.5%. Entering today’s debate that’s swung to an advantage for Kamala Harris of 1.1%. So, broadly the Democrat’s game of switcheroo has worked to tilt the race by 2.6% in their direction. But what we know about the presidential polls in Donald Trump’s third presidential election is two-fold. 1) Donald Trump doesn’t need to win the national popular vote to win the most Electoral College votes. Two of the last three Republican presidential wins, including Trump’s in 2016, came without winning the popular vote. 2) Polls most commonly under sample Donald Trump’s support. On that note, in the RCP average of polls Donald Trump is running 6.2 points better against Harris today than he was against Joe Biden four years ago and 1.4 points better than he was against Hillary Clinton eight years ago. If Trump is running substantially better than he was when he narrowly lost, which he is, and consistently better than he was when he won, which he is, in reality, he’s already positioned to win. If Trump puts in a strong debate performance tonight that cements the level of support the polls already suggest he has, he’s likely to win. Conversely, given how Kamala’s currently running compared to her predecessors, she’s in need of hitting a home run with tonight’s debate. An awful lot has changed since the first debate, including the Democrat’s candidate. What hasn’t is that Trump remains the favorite to win. Literally. In the betting markets, just prior to the first presidential debate, Trump’s odds of winning were shown to be 51.7%. Today, they’re at 51.5%. And in that respect, it’s a case of the more that this race has changed, the more it’s remained the same. That takes us to...
- The rules of the debate... Much like the first debate there will be no studio audience. There will be only a pen, paper and water allowed on stage. No prewritten notes will be allowed nor will any sitting. The debate is scheduled for 90 minutes. There will be two commercial breaks though neither candidate will be allowed to consult their political teams. And then there’s the rule that was the biggest point of contention for Kamala Harris’ team. A candidate’s microphone will only be turned on when it’s their time to speak. While it was in play during the first debate, Harris’ team attempted to get rid of that already agreed upon rule for the ABC News debate, in hopes that Kamala could interrupt Trump and attempt to get under his skin during the debate. Answers will be limited to two minutes each with two-minute rebuttals and an additional minute for follow-ups. Only the moderators will be able to ask questions. And about the moderators they are David Muir, he of good hair, who said this following Joe Biden’s speech announcing he was exiting the presidential race: Tonight gratitude is the word for so many people in this country, pointing to Joe Biden now and calling him a patriot who stepped in when democracy needed it. Hmm... I don’t know about you but that wasn’t what I was thinking when he dropped out but that’s Muir’s take on the news, and now he’s moderating a debate featuring a candidate that he implied “democracy” was “rescued” from. That’s fun. And then there’s Lindsey Davis, who has repeatedly over the years suggested through her line of questioning, that Donald Trump is a racist a la during the 2020 election cycle when she asked Stacy Abrams whether “President Trump is a white supremacist or a racist”, because ya know, naturally that’s an appropriate question to ask, or when just last month at the DNC Lindsey asked Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer this: Many people are aware that a month ago, in Howell, KKK protesters marched in the streets with the white robes on and suggested that they support Donald Trump. I’m curious if you make anything about that connection and him (Trump) going in particularly to Howell tomorrow. Clearly, it’s Lindsey who wanted to try to make something out of that. At the same time, Lindsey, on-air, called Kamala Harris’ VP win in 2020 “profound” and “powerful”. But then again, that’s par for the course at ABC News. According to the Media Research Center ABC’s World News Tonight program has provided the most biased news coverage of any network. In the MRC’s study, from July 21st when Kamala Harris entered the race, through September 6th, 100% of the coverage of Kamala Harris was positive. During the same time 93% of the news coverage of Donald Trump was negative. But hey, CNN’s debate moderators, Tapper and Bash, had previously likened Trump to Hitler, and they moderated a credible debate (though that may have only been the case because they wanted to throw Joe overboard) so maybe these two won’t be that bad. Donald Trump won the debate coin toss and opted to provide the final closing statement to the debate and Kamala Harris chose to stand on the right side of the debate stage (which will be on the left of your screen).