Biden Smartly Sets Debates With Trump - Horowitz

Biden Smartly Sets Debates With Trump - Horowitz

Recognizing that Donald Trump had boxed himself in with his overheated daily proclamations that he would debate President Biden anywhere, anytime, the Biden campaign moved smartly last week to set two debates with Mr. Trump and to do so on their terms. 

 

The debates are scheduled for June 27 and September 10 and will be hosted by CNN and ABC, respectively.  As the Biden campaign insisted, they will only include the two major party candidates and will be conducted without an audience. Perhaps most importantly, to prevent Donald Trump from constantly interrupting as he has done in several past debates when it is a candidate’s turn to speak, the other candidate’s microphone will be turned off.

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The unprecedently early first debate is by design. The Biden campaign believes the more Donald Trump is front and center, the better their chances of winning.  Over the past several election cycles, there is ample data to back this up: whenever Donald Trump is the main focus of media attention, he or his chosen candidates nearly always lose ground.  

 

Given that the former president remains as unpopular as ever, with nearly 54% of registered voters viewing him unfavorably in the FiveThirtyEight weighted average of recent polls, there is little reason to expect this pattern to change. 

 

In this contest, Joe Biden’s own anemic approval ratings ups the importance of reminding voters of all Donald Trump’s manifest deficiencies. Serving up large doses of Trump himself—which debates will certainly do--remains the best way to accomplish this task.

 

Further, as was the case with the State of the Union, President Biden stands to benefit from low expectations.  With most Americans perceiving Mr. Biden as too old, and Donald Trump, his campaign, and other Republicans continuing to say Biden is infirm and has major cognitive deficits, the president can well-exceed expectations as he did with his State of the Union address simply by performing competently without major stumbles. 

 

The Biden campaign also knows that their candidate bested Donald Trump in both of their 2020 debates.   The first debate was particularly disastrous for Mr. Trump. His constant interruptions, refusals to adhere to the debate rules, leading to several admonishments by the moderator Chris Wallace, and all-around obnoxious demeanor were features of what was arguably the worst debate performance by a major party candidate in modern debate history. Generally speaking, one-on-one debates with their opportunities for real time fact checking, need for at least some policy depth, and requirements for message discipline to drive home a few main points expose Mr. Trump’s weaknesses. Correspondingly, they provide few opportunities for the former president to display his signature communications strengths.

 

Debates in presidential campaigns are rarely consequential. They mainly serve to reinforce people’s existing views of the candidates.  In what promises to be a close race, however, and one where nearly 1-in-5 likely voters have negative opinions of both the major party candidates (the so-called double-haters), debates can matter at the margins.  President Biden’s decision to seize the initiative on debates, as well as Donald Trump’s demonstrated deficiencies as a debater, leave the president well-positioned to reap the lion's share of the gains.