Opinion: Put the Debate Champagne Away, Democrats. Trump Can Still Beat Harris
For those who hyped Tuesday night’s showdown as a reverse of the June debate, whereby 78-year-old Donald Trump would present as the dementia-ridden old man to 59-year-old spry Kamala Harris were just plain wrong.
A doddering old man, he was not.
Donald Trump didn’t limp onto the stage, his eyes were not vacant, his skin was not gray and his sentences were coherent, even when nonsensical.
And in the first thirty minutes, Trump fought like a guy who–literally–has his life on the line.
And then, he became Donald Trump.
Trump’s Conspiracies Dominate Dog-Eat-Dog Debate Against Harris
Instead of focusing on the very real vulnerabilities Harris’ campaign has around issues key to the narrow slice of the swing state electorate who will decide the election–mainly the economy and border security–he jumped the shark in typical Trump fashion.
Suddenly we were lost in an alternative reality word salad where migrants are eating cats and dogs, governors in blue states are allowing babies to be executed after they are born, and imprisoned illegal aliens are getting gender transition surgery in their cells.
In order to win on Tuesday night (and possibly in November), Trump needed to demonstrate discipline and focus, proving to the country that the Vice President is what he has made her out to be: weak, incompetent and dangerously liberal–a task he failed at in spectacular fashion.
Kamala Harris is not Joe Biden: she is young, vibrant and can string together a sentence.
But that’s not why she delivered a crushing blow to Donald Trump last night. Kamala Harris didn’t win the debate because she’s not Joe Biden—she won because she is Kamala Harris. Her prosecutorial skills were on full display as she sliced and diced the former president on everything from Russia to his criminal record. She demonstrated depth and knowledge on a wide array of complex policy and geopolitical issues. She was polished and poised.
Trump and Harris’ debate may have seemed terminal for the former president but the election remains a jump ball.
Women are always expected to exceed the bar set for them, while their male counterparts only have to show up. Kamala Harris knew that – and she cleared the bar and then some.
A CNN snap poll taken immediately after the debate confirmed as much: 63% of viewers declared Harris the winner, while only 37% came down in favor of Trump’s performance. And while this may seem like cause for celebration, Democrats need to tamp down the jubilation, put the champagne away and remember the not-so-distant past. In the same CNN poll taken immediately after the first general election debate between Trump and Clinton in 2016, Trump actually fared worse with only 24% of respondents declaring him the winner. And we all remember how that turned out.
Surprising as it might seem after the debate which made clear just how bad Trump can be, this election is not signed, sealed or delivered.
In 2016, Hillary Clinton won the national popular vote by 2.1 points, but lost the battleground states by 1.6 points – a 3.8 margin; in 2020 Joe Biden won the popular vote by 4.5 points, but only won the battleground states by 1 point – a 3.5 margin. That pattern suggests that Harris needs to outperform Trump nationally by at least three to four points in order to ensure a win on election night— and she is not there yet.
Make no mistake: this election is a jump ball. The electoral college odds naturally favor the republican party. Poll after poll shows the American public believes the country is on the wrong track. Trump still maintains the edge as the candidate voters prefer on three of the most important issues in the election: the economy, immigration and the Middle East.
Watching Democratic talking heads on cable news Tuesday night and Wednesday morning, I can’t help but think back to a moment in 2016.
‘Morning Joe’ Crew Howl at Trump’s Debate Performance
Clinton’s campaign was so confident in her victory that her aides reportedly popped open champagne on the campaign plane midday on election day.
That night, my then-boss Governor Cuomo was set to speak as part of the program at Hillary Clinton’s election party at the Javits Center – a location chosen because of the symbolic significance of the all-glass ceiling above. A ceiling which everyone from Nate Silver on down had predicted Hillary would easily crash through that night.
When we pulled up in a black SUV around 10:30 pm, the New York Times election predictor needle unbelievably crossed over from forecasting a Clinton presidency to a Trump one. “What do I say?” the governor asked, staring at his pre-prepared remarks. The Clinton campaign had an instruction: say what you were planning to say—act like this isn’t happening. And so, he did. Three hours later, Trump declared victory. The only glass shattered that night was that of a champagne bottle smashed on the street outside the Javits center.
The party never really got started at the Javits Center in New York in 2016. And the same could happen again.
It’s hard to overstate the stakes of this election for Trump. If he loses, he may, very well, spend his golden years in a federal penitentiary instead of wining-and-dining his real estate buddies at Mar-a-Lago. He is not going to go down without a fight. And his electorate is difficult to poll.
So far Harris is playing error-free ball. She should demand more debates—if he gives them to her, she wins. If he doesn’t, she wins by the tacit admission from Trump that he knows he can’t beat her one-on-one.
We’ve got 54 days left to go until the election and a lot can happen between now and then. Harris and her team have to keep running like we are behind—it’s the only way we’ll end up ahead.
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