Jonathan V. Last: The Trump-Biden Debate

Source:The Bulwark give their post-debate analysis.

"Come watch the first 2024 presidential debate with The Bulwark and stay after for our analysis." 

From The Bulwark

Just to take on 1 point first. The New Democrat is not going to get into what the race would look like, if President Biden literally steps down and releases his delegates at the Democratic National Convention. I don't think that's going to happen. Whether it should or not, that's a different question. I'm just going to look at this as if the President decides to move forward, and what are the consequences of last night's debate and where the election goes from here. 

If there was anything good about last night's debate between Donald Trump and Joe Biden, is that Mr. Trump didn't add any new voters to his base. Even with all the baggage of the Biden presidency, mostly relating to the President's age, and inflation, the Trump-Biden race was essentially in a dead heat. At least in the popular vote. Which tells me, as well as a lot of other people, that whatever problems they have with President Joe Biden, they don't like Donald Trump. 

What people don't like about Donald Trump having to do with his self-obsession, his lying, his inability to stick to the same script, they got 100 minutes of that Donald Trump. The problem is that you didn't have a strong, sharp, opponent, for the most part, there to point about all of Donald Trump's lies and hold him accountable for that, with few exceptions. 

President Biden did call Mr. Trump a liar and a whiner, multiple times, Trump said that they shouldn't be childish on stage, the President called him a child right after that in response. The President said Trump has the morals of an ally cat. But what too many voters from the Biden Campaign's perspective saw last night, was an 81 year old man, who struggles to get his words and thoughts out of his mouth.

I think what we may see from the debate last night, is two politicians who had bad nights at least as far as being able to communicate to new voters. 

In President Biden's case, he has now his own voters worried about whether he can still win at this point. But maybe the popular vote polling stays about the same, because you still have 1-5 Republicans who still don't want to vote for Donald Trump again. And Independents saying they're not ready to vote for the President yet, but they still don't like Donald Trump either. 

So maybe Donald Trump remains the favorite to win in November, or the election leans in his direction, but he hasn't added any new voters beyond his base and Republicans holding their noses and deciding to vote for him again anyway. But I think this could be the best case scenario for Joe Biden. 

The other scenario is, Independents are now saying that they don't like Donald Trump. But they don't think Joe Biden is up for the job physically or mentally. And therefor they're going to vote for Trump and perhaps hope that our governmental institutions are strong enough to hold him accountable and prevent a Donald Trump dictatorship[. Or as at least one person on this Bulwark show: "Maybe American voters now want a dictator." 

I think going forward, the next few days, the weekend and even next week are very important for Joe Biden. He and Vice President Kamala Harris have to be out there and out in public a lot over the next 7-10 days. 

A longtime Republican strategist Cheri Jacobus on Threads said today that President Biden needs to be doing a series of network town halls right now out there, taking questions, speaking to the voters to try to convince these voters that he's still up for the job and can still do a good job. That along with getting Vice President Harris out a lot more, doing a lot more TV, more campaign rallies, perhaps even town halls on her own, I think is the best post-debate advice that anyone can give this campaign. 

As well as what Michael Steele said on MSNBC last night: "The President needs to own his debate performance and not try to deny it, or act like it was better than what everyone else saw."

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