Donald Trump Didn't Have a Great Debate, But Kamala Harris Didn't Either

It's very possible initial reax got this one wrong

Welcome to Thunderdome. The initial reactions to this week’s presidential debate from the commentariat was emphatic: Trump lost, Kamala won. But sometimes debates suffer from an initial overreaction from the highly tuned in, and once there’s a couple of days of simmering, reactions can change. That could be what we’re seeing happen in the reaction to this debate — it’s certainly what friend of the newsletter Hugh Hewitt thinks. But it’s also what some undecided voters think, too. Take Arizonan Sabrina Champ’s reaction, who was previously a Bernie Sanders voter and says no one won the debate:

“She baited him and he fell for it. That was disappointing,” Champ said. “But as far as Kamala is concerned, I didn’t see a lot of policy. She seemed to dodge some of the major questions or go back to rebutting whatever Trump just said.”

Champ said she spent the hours before the debate traveling between food banks searching for assistance for her and her sons. While she is unconvinced that either major party has a plan to improve her economic well-being, Kennedy’s endorsement of Trump and potential role in his administration are making Champ lean toward casting her ballot for the former president.

“They both seemed very rehearsed,” she said of Trump and Harris. “What choice do we really have at this point?”

I think the mistake Democrats may have made is that the key dynamic of the debate was actually the ABC News moderators versus Donald Trump, not Kamala Harris versus Trump. She didn’t stand up a contrasting vision to him on the economy or inflation (the latter word the moderators never mentioned), on immigration (where despite Trump’s whacky Laura Loomer-motivated cats and dogs comments, she articulated nothing of substance) or on foreign policy (the Disney employees never even said the word “China,” for some reason).

Harris has unquestionably activated the partisan loyalty of Democratic voters, and we’ve seen that in the polls. But the problem for her is people really do need some idea what they’re voting for in her, on all of these fundamental issues. If you think this election is about vibes, then it’s a big deal that Taylor Swift endorsed Harris, something Brian Stelter keeps hyping up... but if it’s about fundamentals? What if any questions did Kamala answer in that debate to resolve people’s uncertainty about what she plans to do? Her dismissiveness on fracking, guns and abortion as if nothing Trump argued was landing seems to me to be a mistake, instead of confronting it head on and promising to the American people what she will and will not do.

The biggest loser of the debate, of course, was ABC News and the media. The fact that we’ve had a host of stories, including at TIME magazine, where editors have had to jump in and issue corrections saying, “Well, actually we found out Kamala really did endorse transgender surgery for illegal jailed migrants” is not a good look. Nor is the very evident spin on behalf of hosts David Muir and Linsey Davis, whose choice of questions and constant “fact checking” of Trump’s comments proved disruptive and partisan, instead of just letting the people judge for themselves.

One key sign that bolsters the “Kamala actually lost” theory is that she’s asking for another debate. If it was truly a clear win, she wouldn’t want to re-engage. Instead, campaign surrogates are out there today saying that she should debate on Fox News. If she wants another go-round, Trump should agree to it to redeem his lackluster performance — but it’s also a sign that even if she came out better than him this week, it wasn’t the knockout she needed in a campaign that seems to be faltering behind where Joe Biden had Democrats just a few months ago. Look to Nancy Pelosi on this: she chose to live or die with Kamala as the champion as one of her last acts in politics. It could be a decision she comes to regret.

The Democratic ticket is ‘abortion in a box’

Whenever the media interacts with the issue of abortion, the number of false claims asserted with absolute confidence and authority quickly become ridiculous. The general attitude is one of fact-checking with your vibes: “This claim is false because it would be deeply uncomfortable for me to admit it is true.” In Minnesota, where Tim Walz governs, the facts are widely known: the Born Alive Infant Protection Act, signed into law by Democratic governor Mark Dayton, required doctors provide care to infants who survived abortions — of which there are several in your average year. Governor Walz purposefully reversed this policy, as well as eliminating reporting requirements that made hospitals share the data on such births.

Your mileage may vary in why you think Walz did this. Personally, I think it’s because he’s a crazed political radical who thinks delivering a dead baby to a woman who wanted a dead baby is more important than even your basic ethical requirements. Consider: by signing this into law, Walz is literally saying the Hippocratic Oath does not apply to an innocent life screaming and gasping for breath on a hospital table. And he has the gall to lecture pro-lifers about morality? There’s a reason why the religious numbers in this election are perhaps the most skewed we’ve ever seen.

Yet the Harris-Walz campaign is leaning in hard on the abortion issue, despite repeated polling evidence that it’s not a high priority for voters. Here’s the Super PAC describing it as a “campaign in a box”:

American Bridge 21st Century released its latest round of TV and digital ads on Thursday — airing in Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Michigan and backed by $15 million buy — focused entirely on contrasting Vice President Kamala Harris and former president Donald Trump on abortion. The ads, exclusively obtained by Politico, hammer Trump for nominating the Supreme Court justices who overturned Roe v. Wade.

It’s the latest evidence that Democrats are prioritizing abortion as a top issue for Harris, who forcefully attacked Trump over his positions on it at Tuesday’s debate. Earlier this year, American Bridge officials said their ads would cover the economy and democracy, as well as abortion, but “right now, with Trump and [JD] Vance, abortion has come back to the forefront and it’s a very comfortable [issue] for Harris, who has a stellar record on it,” said Bradley Beychok, co-founder of American Bridge, pointing to Trump’s refusal during the debate to commit to vetoing a national abortion ban.

“We’ve been pretty consistent that we’re going to talk about abortion, democracy and freedom, which is a campaign-in-a-box that’s won a lot of elections,” Beychok continued. “We’ve won a lot of elections talking about abortion and talking about taking away freedoms, so we’re not going to be able to say it enough.”

I think I found your problem right here though:

Among Trump supporters, the economy (93 percent), immigration (82 percent) and violent crime (76 percent) are the leading issues. Just 18 percent of Trump supporters say racial and ethnic inequality is very important. And even fewer say climate change is very important (11 percent).

For Harris supporters, issues such as health care (76 percent) and Supreme Court appointments (73 percent) are of top importance. Large majorities also cite the economy (68 percent) and abortion (67 percent) as very important to their vote in the election.

About six-in-ten voters (61 percent) today say immigration is very important to their vote — a 9 percentage point increase from the 2020 presidential election and thirteen points higher than during the 2022 congressional elections.

Immigration is now a much more important issue for Republican voters in particular: 82 percent of Trump supporters say it is very important to their vote in the 2024 election, up twenty-one points from 2020.

About four-in-ten Harris supporters (39 percent) say immigration is very important to their vote. This is eight points higher than the share of Democratic congressional supporters who said this in 2022, but lower than the 46 percent of Biden supporters who cited immigration as very important four years ago.

In August 2020, fewer than half of voters (40 percent) said abortion was a very important issue to their vote. At the time, Trump voters (46 percent) were more likely than Biden voters (35 percent) to say it mattered a great deal.

Following the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade, opinions about abortion’s importance as a voting issue shifted. Today, 67 percent of Harris supporters call the issue very important – nearly double the share of Biden voters who said this four years ago, though somewhat lower than the share of midterm Democratic voters who said this in 2022 (74 percent). And about a third of Trump supporters (35 percent) now say abortion is very important to their vote — eleven points lower than in 2020.

The point here: abortion motivates the Democratic base, but its salience as an issue has only decreased — even among partisans — since 2022 when it was blamed for GOP underperformance. Betting a whole election on it seems very dubious.

Who is Kamala really?

Freddy Gray on the still unanswered questions.

Harris does have advantages over Trump which Clinton did not. To the electorate she’s a fresh candidate, unlike Trump, who is now on his third run for the White House. She has been vice-president for almost four years, but the surprising and sudden way her campaign began gives her candidacy a certain freedom. To adapt her gnomic catchphrase, Harris can be unburdened by what she has been — at least as far as committed Democrats are concerned. She benefits not only from the enduring power of Trump hatred but from the widespread relief that poor, dysfunctional Biden is no longer running.

It’s worth noting, too, that Election Day matters less now than it did in 2016. Thanks to the growing prevalence of postal and early in-person voting, America in 2024 has more of an election season. Voting will start in earnest this month in several of the most important swing states.

In 2020, because of Covid, some 72 percent of US voters cast their ballot in advance of the November deadline. That number should go down this year — though nobody knows by how much. What’s almost certain, however, is that more early voting will be good news for Democratic candidates. Biden would never have reached the White House in 2020 if the only votes that counted were cast on Election Day. In the case of Harris, mass early voting also means her superior debate performance will matter more than it might have done in the past. Trump’s on-screen flailing will be in the minds of many voters as they cast their ballots.

None of that exactly makes Harris a strong candidate, however. “You’re not running against Joe Biden, you’re running against me,” she told Trump, schoolmarmishly, on Tuesday. But who is she, what does she stand for, and how might her presidency differ from Joe Biden’s? Trump may have failed to pin her on these questions, but they remain unanswered.

Leonard Leo wants the right in warmode

So we’re getting are first insight into what FedSoc’s Leonard Leo wants to do with his massive fund, aimed at taking the fight to the left across the country — and it’s the opposite of the old guard approach to think tanks, conferences, and seminars. Axios reports on his call to LFG:

Leonard Leo, the conservative activist with an estimated $1 billion at his disposal, is threatening to withhold money from the dozens of groups he supports unless they develop plans to “weaponize” their ideas.

Why it matters: Leo’s call for conservative groups to get more aggressive will send shockwaves through the right-wing ecosystem he helped create.

Leo wants less conversation and more action — fewer seminars and more campaigns — as part of a plan to “crush liberal dominance at the choke points of influence and power in our society,” he told the groups in a letter obtained by Axios.

The goal should be to direct “funding to operationalize or weaponize the conservative vision,” Leo wrote. Leo, fifty-nine, is telling organizations backed by his 85 Fund that he’s undertaking a “comprehensive review” of his grant-making process.

His letter doesn’t mention any specific groups by name, but they know who they are. Groups such as Teneo, Honest Elections Project, Consumers’ Research and Do No Harm are examples of organizations that have adopted the kind of aggressive tactics Leo encourages, according to a source close to the 85 Fund.

Those groups have run campaigns that have achieved measurable results, such as Consumers’ Research’s work on ESG investing, which has been featured in congressional hearings. Decisions about future funding will be shared with the groups by the end of November, Leo’s letter said.

One more thing

You may by now have seen the footage of Joe Biden borrowing a hat from a Trump supporter at a recent event, but it’s worth watching the entire video. It’s something Democrats are underestimating in this election. By ditching Joe Biden, sure, they got rid of an old man with dodgy moments where he seems senile and incapable of fulfilling his office (another question the moderators didn’t ask of Kamala, amazingly), but they also got rid of a guy who is extremely good at retail politics and basic human interaction for someone who operates at a bizarre remove. The massive bet Democrats have made on an inauthentic vehicle for their progressive politics in Kamala is also a bet that TV and ad spending and arm’s-length interaction with the populace is perfectly fine in this day and age. Well, they might be right. But if they’re wrong, it’ll only serve to bolster the idea that what Old Joe brought to politics is still essential, and you can’t run Berkeley instead of Scranton and get the same people of Pennsylvania on your side.