Following the debate between President Trump and Vice President Harris, Democrats and the left-leaning media went into gushing hyperbole. They not only declared Harris the run-away winner but said that Trump had been crushed — defeated. CNN’s Chirs Wallace declared Trump’s performance as worse than Biden’s in the debate that forced then President out of the race.
We saw that same giddy demeanor during the Democrat National Convention. Despite all the hoopla and the high praise coming from the crony press, Harris did not get the anticipated “bump” from the convention. In fact, Harris’ small lead in the polls began to shrink in some cases.
Based on the claims of the Democrat leadership – including Harris’ own claim – and the judgment and reporting from the biased media, the Vice President was the overwhelming winner in the Harris/Trump debate. Some Democrats and pundits even declared the debate to have been a fatal blow to the Trump campaign.
It is true that Trump was not at the top of his game in that debate. He could have done better – much better. He was further compromised by some of the most biased moderating I have ever witnessed. That means every debate since Nixon versus Kennedy.
It is also true that Harris performed well – aided by biased moderating and her refusal to answer questions. She stayed on script.
In my post-debate commentary, I offered several observations. I gave both participants a “C” for their performance – style and substance. I predicted that when the post-debate results were in – within a week or so of the debate — there would be virtually no change in voter preferences. I called it a draw.
An ABC/Ipsos poll showed that 63 percent of Americans thought Harris won the debate. But those are not the important numbers. They are overly influenced by all the partisan media spin immediately following the debate. The important numbers come in the polls in in the week or so after the debate – when the dust begins to settle.
Weeell … MSNBC’s Joe Scarborough reported the more recent results of the ABC/Ipsos poll. I found the results as interesting as Scarborough found them disappointing. Prior to the debate, the ABC poll showed Harris with a 52 to 46 percent lead over Trump. After the debate, the same poll showed Harris with a 52 to 46 percent lead over Trump. No change at all.
There will be other polls and both sides will call them good news. What can be said at this time is that Harris did NOT get a bump from the debate. All that partisan paise was for naught.
I never saw Harris as the winner – and said so at the time. Since the entire purpose of a political debate is to improve a candidate’s support among voters, they determine the winner. Not the politicians, the pundits or the press.
Harris did not win that debate … period. All the partisan hyperbolic praise was just that. According to the polls — the voters – there was no winner coming out of the debate – and no amount of partisan cheerleading can change that.
In a sense, all that praise heaped on Harris may have given a bit of an edge to Trump. It created an expectation of a significant bump for Harris that did not happen. She fell short of expectations and the hype.
As I have cautioned in the past, the polls are very close and have been regularly changing within the margin of error — and will continue to do so for the time being. There may be a surge by one candidate over the other at some point, but that has not yet happened. Despite the predictions and Harris hype, it did not happen after the Democrat convention, and it did not happen after the debate.
Unless there is another debate, there is nothing on the schedule that can be seen as a game changer. It is all up to the trend lines, current and historic – specifically those in the battleground states. That gives Trump an ever so slight edge among the pundits and the bettors.
So, there ‘tis.