Biden flopped, but did Trump really 'win' the debate?

There's no sugarcoating it: President Joe Biden had a terrible night. During his first of two scheduled debates against rival Donald Trump, Biden was at various points unintelligible, underwhelming, and largely unconvincing that he was the better choice to lead the nation for another four years. Try as the president's team may try to spin his performance on Thursday evening, the fact that even mainstream liberal pundits are now openly questioning whether Democrats should find another nominee is proof enough that whatever goals Biden's campaign set out for the highly anticipated debate were missed, and missed to a potentially historic degree.

Still, Biden's undeniably poor showing does not necessarily a Trump triumph make. While the presumptive Republican nominee may have ended his night as the clear beneficiary of the president's struggles, was his an actual knockout or simply a win by forfeit? In the aftermath of Biden's implosion, not everyone is convinced Trump's victory is as clear-cut as it may seem.

Trump 'bombed as well'

The "silver lining" to Thursday's debate is that "Trump provided a metric ton of problematic sound bites," said Democratic strategist Caitlin Legacki at The New York Times. Trump's litany of falsehoods and unpopular policy positions will be "used in ads on every medium from here to the moon over the next four months."

It's not like Trump had "some magical evening," said Politico's Sam Stein. "He was all over the place at times and told some real whoppers." Trump also "invited a bit of mockery" for talking about his golf skills, cognitive abilities, and denial of having sex with a porn star — a line that will "go down in presidential debate history." Ultimately there's a "difference between Biden losing the debate and Trump winning it," Politico's Steven Shepard said. The former president exhibited a lot of the "traits voters don't like," making it "hard to proclaim him much more than the winner by default."

While Biden may have "caused a four-alarm fire among Democrats," Roll Call said, "Trump seemingly did nothing to appeal to undecided voters." When it comes to swing voters, Trump may have "bombed as well," Democratic strategist David Plouffe said to the outlet.

Contemporaneous data seemed to bear Plouffe's suspicions out. "My group of undecided voters are moving away from Trump as he gets more and more vicious towards Biden," said pollster Frank Luntz on X. "They complain that this sounds like a senior citizen bingo hall argument."

'Ready to rumble'

Trump's cadre of campaign surrogates had an "easier night than even they might have imagined," The Dispatch said. "The toughest queries they dealt with were not about the former president, but the current one." Meanwhile, Trump displayed "uncharacteristic restraint" during the debate, and relied on his "best skill — comedic timing and a sense for good TV entertainment," Fox News said. Trump approached the debate "ready to rumble," conservative columnist Charles Hurt said at The Washington Times.

At the same time, Trump's dominant debate performance may come back to haunt him, and Republicans at large. The GOP may "regret their good night in the debate," said The National Review's Michael Brendan Dougherty. Should Biden drop out and a new Democratic nominee be chosen at the party's upcoming convention in Chicago this August, that type of drama is "usually energizing for a party, not demoralizing" and might "allow Democrats to feel like the party of the future again, rather than a party litigating a recent past that voters hated."

Even Biden himself seemed to acknowledge that Trump may have come off as the dominant candidate in the heat of the debate. "I know I'm not a young man, to state the obvious," he said during a post-event rally. "I don't walk as easy as I used to. I don't speak as smoothly as I used to. I don't debate as well as I used to. But I know what I do know: I know how to tell the truth. I know right from wrong. And I know how to do this job."

While Biden may be counting on the long game to rescue his deflating debate performance, the Trump camp seems perfectly content with the former president's ostensible victory, no matter how it was achieved.