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Debate Wrap Up: No One Has Ever So Thoroughly Dominated Donald Trump

Debate Wrap Up: No One Has Ever So Thoroughly Dominated Donald Trump
by Josh Marshall

I feel obligated to note at the top that you can win a debate and lose the election. Donald Trump isn’t a momentary candidate. He has a big national political following that has remained loyal over almost a decade. Nothing happened tonight that is going to shake the confidence of his supporters. But with that said, this debate was an absolute rout. Harris had a minute or two of nerves in her opening statement. But from the very first exchange she maintained the initiative, kept Trump on the defensive the entire time and simply dominated him. I don’t see any way to contest that basic verdict.

She set a tone at the very start when she walked right into his space to shake his hand and made him almost pull back into himself in response. She was in charge and never stopped being in charge.

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She’s Spun Him a Thousand Times

by Josh Marshall

10:38 PM: In any war, in any sport, you maintain the initiative and you’re on the road to victory. Harris has controlled the entire debate. She’s effectively baited him in a way no other candidate has ever been able to do. It’s not like she’s going to rocket into some big lead. People aren’t going to abandon Trump. But she needed to show she can dominate him, be the one in control. She has. It’s as simple as that. She’s also gotten him to spend most of the debate showing his most feral and angry self. This debate was a rout. I don’t think there’s any other way to put it.

10:19 PM: Is she actually going to overmatch him on the Afghanistan withdrawal question?

10:05 PM: Trump has simply been on the defensive for every moment of this debate. She delivers her messages, while also baiting him and he responds and gets angrier in a way that makes him even less coherent than normal. She’s controlling the tempo and frankly dominating the debate. Meanwhile he’s spent most of the debate talking about his worst vulnerabilities.

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Okay, Take Two …

by Josh Marshall

9:55 PM: Trump’s definitely not going to be a strongman and his character witness is Viktor Orban.

9:54 PM: They say you’re a disgrace. Wow.

9:48 PM: So Trump spent his time saying that Nancy Pelosi did January 6th.

9:44 PM: So I’m going to say that energy answer wasn’t great for Trump. Good lord.

9:37 PM: I keep hoping she’ll say one thing and then she doesn’t. But she says something better. She’s hitting her points.

9:33 PM: Obviously Afghanistan is a good issue for Trump. It is what it is. But Trump’s getting angrier and angrier. It’s visible.

9:29 PM: She’s just baiting him and he’s taking the bait. He’s hitting points he wants to certainly. But he is reacting to her.

9:23 PM: JD made a crunchy sound after Don threw him under the bus.

9:21 PM: Harris’s response on abortion was literally perfect.

9:20 PM: There are technical points I was hoping Harris would hit on abortion. But what she’s actually doing is much better. “Trump abortion bans”.

9:18 PM: This is a good example of a case in which his furry and fast talking could give the appearance of coherence. But it’s all nonsense. I’m listening now to the abortion answer. It just sounded like jibberish.

9:14 PM: She’s spinning him in the circles. I’m not trying to be over-optimistic. But every exchange so far is her pressing a point that is important to her campaign and he’s responding and often with a fugue of nonsense.

9:11 PM: She’s driving this debate so far.

9:08 PM: Harris started a bit nervous, a touch wobbly. But she’s hitting the points she needs to hit. She’s making him respond. That’s what I’m seeing so far.

9:01 PM: Why is he calling him “President Trump”. He’s the former President. He’s not Prsident.

Okay, let’s do this.

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Getting Our Heads Around Tonight’s Debate

 Member Newsletter
Getting Our Heads Around Tonight’s Debate
by Josh Marshall

Tonight we have the second presidential debate of the 2024 campaign cycle and the first for this presidential campaign. Much as I would like to buck the conventional wisdom, the stakes are genuinely quite high. One poll I saw this morning showed a remarkably high, really impossibly high percentage of voters said that the debate would have a major impact on their vote: 30%. But as debate watchers we come back to a basic conundrum: if you’re paying enough attention to be worked up about the debate you are almost certainly not the intended audience. And not only are you not the intended audience but your experience of the campaign and politics generally is so totally different from that of the intended audience that absent a real suspension of disbelief, a real effort to separate yourself from your own impressions, you’ll have a hard time knowing how each candidate did for the audience that matters.

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Another Poll Check In

by Josh Marshall

I wanted to look at a decent number of new polls out today. They paint a mixed and complicated picture. There’s no other way to put it. Two new national polls have a tied race. On it’s face, that’s not a great sign for Harris. A tie popular vote is very likely to mean defeat. But it’s not that simple. The two polls are from Pew and the Harris Poll. Pew is a very solid poll but generally unfriendly to Democrats in recent cycles. So for instance at the height of the Kamala surge they had her up one point over Trump. Now it’s even. Not a big a difference. The Harris poll (really the zombie Harris poll now owned and operated by Mark Penn) meanwhile is not just extremely unfriendly to Democrats but closer to Rasmussen territory. (Just to avoid confusion, let’s christen it the Penn-Harris poll.) In other words, we’re not just talking a house effect generally unfriendly to Democrats but really a question in my mind whether it should even be considered a legitimate poll. Taken together I think it’s fair to assume there may be some leveling off of Kamala Harris’ support. But I don’t think there’s real evidence of some kind of sea change in the race.

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Just like the first first presidential debate of 2024, the second first presidential debate of 2024 (now with a different Democratic candidate) was quite an experience. A very different kind of experience.

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