(DISCLAIMER: Please read the whole thing to the end before rushing to a premature judgement. I promise you will thank yourself for it!)
The original version of this can found here:
The Pew poll is devastating, just devastating. Before the debate, Joe Biden had a 51 – 43 lead; now, Donald Trump has a 49 – 45 lead. That’s a simply unprecedented reversal for a candidate. Before, the President had leads on every policy issue and personal characteristic; now Trump leads in almost all of them. The President’s performance gave Trump a 12 point swing! I repeat: a 12 point swing.
Trump’s favorables are above Biden’s now. Yes, you read that right. Donald Trump’s favorables are higher than Joe Biden’s right now. That gender gap that was the President’s firewall? Over in one night:
Currently, women are evenly divided (47% - 47%). Last month, the President led by 18 points (56% to 38%) among women likely voters.
Seriously: has that kind of swing ever happened this late in a campaign? Has any candidate lost 18 points among women voters in one night ever? And we are told that when the President left the stage that night, he was feeling good. That’s terrifying. On every single issue, Biden has instantly plummeted into near-oblivion. He still has some personal advantages over Trump – even though they are all much diminished. The President still has an edge on abortion, scores much higher on relating to ordinary people, is ahead on foreign policy, and on being moderate, consistent and honest (only 14 percent of swing voters believe Trump is honest). But on the core issues of the economy and the deficit, Trump is now kicking the president’s ass:
By a 37% to 24% margin, more swing voters say his opponent would improve the job situation. Swing voters favor Trump on the deficit by a two-to-one (41% vs. 20%) margin…. Trump has gained ground on several of these measures since earlier in the campaign. Most notably, Biden and Trump now run even (44% each) in terms of which candidate is the stronger leader. Biden held a 13-point advantage on this a month ago. And Biden’s 14-point edge as the more honest and truthful candidate has narrowed to just five points. Months ago, Biden held a 17-point lead as the candidate voters thought was more willing to work with leaders from the other party. Today, the candidates run about even on this (45% say Biden, 42% Trump).
Lies work when they are unrebutted live on stage. And momentum counts at this point in the election.
Look: I’m trying to rally some morale, but I’ve never seen a candidate this late in the game just throw in the towel in the way Biden did last night – throw away almost every single advantage he had with voters and manage to enable his opponent to seem as if he cares about the middle class as much as Biden does. How do you erase that imprinted first image from public consciousness: a president incapable of making a single argument or even a halfway decent closing statement? And after Trump’s convincing Etch-A-Sketch, convincing because Biden was incapable of exposing it, Trump is now the centrist candidate, even as he is running to head up the most radical party in the modern era.
How can Biden come back? By ensuring people know that Trump was and is a shameless liar and opportunist? That doesn’t work for a sitting president. He always needed a clear positive message – abortion, democracy, January 6th – as well as a sterling defense of his admirable record. Barack Obama and Bill Clinton did the former for him. Everyone imaginable did what they could for him. And his response? Well, let’s look back a bit:
With President Biden holed up in Camp David for debate practice, things can get pretty boring on the White House beat right now. Pretty boring for Biden too, apparently. “Basically they’re keeping me indoors all the time,” Biden told a supporter on the phone during a visit to a Las Vegas area field office. “It’s a drag,” he added. “They’re making me do my homework.”
Too arrogant to take a core campaign responsibility seriously. Too arrogant to give his supporters what they deserve. If he now came out and said he supports Build Back Better in its entirety, it would look desperate, but now that Trump has junked every proposal he ever told his base, and we’re entering convention time, it’s Biden’s only chance on the economy.
Or maybe, just maybe, Biden can regain our trust and confidence somehow in the next debate. Maybe he can begin to give us a positive vision of what he wants to do (amazing there are only four months left and some of us are still trying to help him, but he cannot). Maybe if Trump can turn this whole campaign around in 90 minutes, Biden can now do the same. But I doubt it. A sitting president does not recover from being obliterated on substance, style and likability in the first debate and get much of a chance to come back. He has, at a critical moment, deeply depressed his base and his supporters and independents are flocking to Trump in droves.
I’ve never seen a candidate self-destruct for no external reason this late in a campaign before. Gore was better in his first debate – and he threw a solid lead into the trash that night. Even Bush was better in 2004 than Biden last week. Even Reagan’s meandering mess in 1984 was better – and he had approaching Alzheimer’s to blame.
I’m trying to see a silver lining. But when a president self-immolates on live TV, and his opponent shines with lies and smiles, and a record number of people watch, it’s hard to see how a president and his party recover. I’m not giving up. If the lies and propaganda of the last four years work even after Biden had managed to fight back solidly against them to get a clear and solid lead in critical states, then reality-based government is over in this country again. We’re back to Trump, but more extreme. We have to find a way to avoid that. Much, much more than Biden’s vanity is at stake.
Just kidding.
This was an article written on October 8, 2012 - after Obama’s historically terrible first debate against Mitt Romney. 24 days before the election, which he won easily with 332 electoral votes and 51% of the popular vote.
Only the names and a few unique identifying phrases have been changed.
Stop. Freaking. Out. Biden is still well on track to win the election.