Biden’s Catastrophic Debate Performance
A second Trump presidency got much more likely last night.
Watching last night’s debate, I had almost exactly the same reaction as my colleague Steven Taylor: President Biden seemed to be a befuddled old man. It was easily the worst showing in one of these events since Admiral James Stockdale’s “Who am I? Why am I here?” in the 1992 vice presidential debate.
We were not alone.
The POLITICO Playbook gang previewed the stakes thusly:
“Hardly anyone is paying attention to this race or to the stakes of this race — and this is our best chance to change that,” said a senior Biden official granted anonymity to speak candidly about internal discussions. “We’re pushing a lot of our chips to the center of the table.”
No one in Biden’s orbit would go so far as to say that a bad night on Thursday would effectively doom the president’s chances of a second term. Five officials in Wilmington and the West Wing believe that there would be time to recover if the debate goes poorly.
But they also aren’t sugarcoating just how difficult a bad night would be. A major mistake by Biden — like a bad verbal gaffe or freeze-up — could linger in the eyes of the public with few remaining opportunities to correct it. The convention is not until August, and the only other debate currently on the books is not until September.
They also know that Biden is being judged on a different scale than his predecessors were, owing to the questions that swirl continuously around Biden’s age. The senior official and three other officials not authorized to speak publicly about private conversations said it was critical that the president use the evening to prove to some skeptics in the national audience that he is able to handle another four years in the Oval Office.
If he were to bomb, the panic from other Democrats could overwhelm the president’s campaign.
The flip side of risk, in this case, is opportunity. And the president’s team sees the debate as presenting that as well. It’s not just that they believe the 81-year-old Biden could dispel doubts that he is too old for the job by having another strong showing akin to his March State of the Union address. They believe he can rattle and land serious blows against Trump.
Alas, bomb he did.
The POLITICO gang (“Dems freak out over Biden’s debate performance: ‘Biden is toast’“) in the immediate aftermath:
All Joe Biden needed to do was deliver a repeat performance of his State of the Union address.
Instead, he stammered. He stumbled. And, with fewer than five months to November, he played straight into Democrats’ worst fears — that he’s fumbling away this election to Donald Trump.
The alarm bells for Democrats started ringing the second Biden started speaking in a haltingly hoarse voice. Minutes into the debate, he struggled to mount an effective defense of the economy on his watch and flubbed the description of key health initiatives he’s made central to his reelection bid, saying “we finally beat Medicare” and incorrectly stating how much his administration lowered the price of insulin. He talked himself into a corner on Afghanistan, bringing up his administration’s botched withdrawal unprompted. He repeatedly mixed up “billion” and “million,” and found himself stuck for long stretches of the 90-minute debate playing defense.
And when he wasn’t speaking, he stood frozen behind his podium, mouth agape, his eyes wide and unblinking for long stretches of time.
Peter Baker, chief White House correspondent for the NYT (“A Fumbling Performance, and a Panicking Party“):
President Biden hoped to build fresh momentum for his re-election bid by agreeing to debate nearly two months before he is to be formally nominated. Instead, his halting and disjointed performance on Thursday night prompted a wave of panic among Democrats and reopened discussion of whether he should be the nominee at all.
Over the course of 90 minutes, a raspy-voiced Mr. Biden struggled to deliver his lines and counter a sharp though deeply dishonest former President Donald J. Trump, raising doubts about the incumbent president’s ability to wage a vigorous and competitive campaign four months before the election. Rather than dispel concerns about his age, Mr. Biden, 81, made it the central issue.
Democrats who have defended the president for months against his doubters — including members of his own administration — traded frenzied phone calls and text messages within minutes of the start of the debate as it became clear that Mr. Biden was not at his sharpest. Practically in despair, some took to social media to express shock, while others privately discussed among themselves whether it was too late to persuade the president to step aside in favor of a younger candidate.
“Biden is about to face a crescendo of calls to step aside,” said a veteran Democratic strategist who has staunchly backed Mr. Biden publicly. “Joe had a deep well of affection among Democrats. It has run dry.”
“Parties exist to win,” this Democrat continued. “The man on the stage with Trump cannot win. The fear of Trump stifled criticism of Biden. Now that same fear is going to fuel calls for him to step down.”
A group of House Democrats said they were watching the debate together, and one, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, acknowledged that it was a “disaster” for Mr. Biden. The person said the group was discussing the need for a new presidential nominee.
Mark Buell, a prominent donor for Mr. Biden and the Democratic Party, said after the debate that the president had to strongly consider whether he is the best person to be the nominee. “Do we have time to put somebody else in there?” Mr. Buell said.
He added that he was not yet calling for Mr. Biden to withdraw but that “Democratic leadership has a responsibility to go to the White House and clearly show what America’s thinking, because democracy is at stake here and we’re all nervous.”
Mr. Biden’s goal in accepting a general election debate earlier than ever held in presidential history was to recalibrate the contest as a choice between himself and a felon who tried to overturn an election and would in his view destroy American democracy if given the power of the presidency again. Mr. Biden left the CNN studio in Atlanta instead facing a referendum on himself and his capacity that will reverberate for days if not longer.
Mr. Trump, 78, appeared to coast through the debate with little trouble, rattling off one falsehood after another without being effectively challenged. He appeared confident while avoiding the excessively overbearing demeanor that had damaged him during his first debate with Mr. Biden in 2020, seemingly content to let his opponent stew in his own difficulties.
While Mr. Trump at times rambled and offered statements that were convoluted, hard to follow and flatly untrue, he did so with energy and volume that covered up his misstatements, managing to stay on offense even on issues of vulnerability for him like the Jan. 6, 2021, attack and abortion.
Mr. Biden appeared on defense much of the time and either did not use lines teed up for him by his campaign’s predebate advertising or mumbled them in passing in such a way that they barely registered.
Karen Tumulty, WaPo editor and columnist (“The Great Democratic Freakout is upon us“):
Get ready for the Great Democratic Freakout.
It will be difficult for even the most creative spinners in President Biden’s camp to manufacture a victory narrative out of his dreadful performance at Thursday night’s debate against his predecessor, Donald Trump.
Which means the anxieties that Democrats have had all along about Biden’s decision to run for a second term will come to the fore, along with far-fetched scenarios in which he might be compelled to step aside. There will no doubt be talk of throwing open the Democratic convention in Chicago in August to pick a new nominee.
But the turmoil that would create would be catastrophic. Biden and Trump are the candidates that each party has cast its lot with — a choice that polls consistently show is the most distasteful one that Americans have faced in modern history.
All along, Biden’s age has been the biggest concern that voters have about him. At 81, he is the oldest sitting president in history; he would be 86 by the end of a second term.
The president’s performance on Thursday will have done nothing to allay their worries. He lost the debate from the first moments. His voice was weak and hoarse, shockingly so. At times, he struggled for words and appeared to lose his train of thought. It was a drastic contrast from the vigorous Biden who delivered a robust State of the Union speech in March.
Though Trump, at 78, is only three years younger than Biden, he dominated throughout.
The lowest moment for Biden — the one likely to be remembered the most, and replayed many times in coming days — came early in the debate, at the end of a rambling answer in which Biden concluded: “We finally beat Medicare.”
Trump, predictably, pounced: “Well, he’s right. He did beat Medicare. He beat it to death.”
[…]
Even when it came to the question he should have most expected — one from CNN’s Dana Bash about his “capability to handle the toughest job in the world well into your 80s” — Biden was rambling and incoherent, first talking about how he spent much of his career as the youngest person in politics and then launching into a disquisition about computer chips.
Biden has tried to turn this election into a referendum on his opponent, which is always a hard thing for an incumbent to do — and particularly so for him. Biden’s job approval in a new Gallup poll is a dismal 38 percent, which is about where it has been for months and about 10 points below the threshold that all reelected incumbent presidents in the modern era have cleared by Election Day.
The same survey found Republicans were nearly twice as likely as Democrats to say they are pleased with their nominee, though fewer than half of those polled viewed either candidate favorably.
In calling for this debate, which was the earliest ever in a general election campaign, Biden was taking a big gamble, and hoping that it would shake the dynamic of a race that is excruciatingly close. He was right, but not in the way he hoped.
Jose Pagliery and Jake Lahut, reporters for The Daily Beast (“Joe Biden Mumbles and Stumbles the Democrats Into Crisis“):
With the future of American democracy at stake, the first presidential debate of 2024 was an embarrassing trip to the nursing home. One old man struggled to answer questions and finish his sentences. The other defied logic and spewed relentless lies.
“We had great H20,” former President Donald Trump said, inexplicably.
“We finally beat Medicare,” President Joe Biden touted, mistakenly.
The string of gaffes threatened to eclipse the most frightening aspect of the night: the fact that the only thing standing between Trump’s increasingly brazen authoritarianism and the White House is a wheezy octogenarian.
In an Atlantic column titled “Trump Should Never Have Had This Platform,” the one-time Republican speechwriter David Frum rightly argues that the very setup was problematic:
The octogenarian president delivered a fiasco of a performance on the Atlanta debate stage. But the fiasco was not his alone.
Everything about the event was designed to blur the choice before Americans. Both candidates—the serving president and the convicted felon—were addressed as “president.” The questions treated an attempted coup d’état as one issue out of many. The candidates were left to police or fail to police the truth of each other’s statements; it was nobody else’s business.
It may be no coincidence that the modern television presidential debate was born at a time of national political consensus. In 1960, John F. Kennedy and Richard Nixon presented a choice very familiar to viewers in the days of three big channels and a limited number of mass-market products: You could choose Crest or Colgate, two very similar products to meet a similar need. One might be a little mintier, the other a little spicier, but both did the job. Now we live in a very different world, a world in which the choice is much more existential—and yet we retain the Crest vs. Colgate format.
How could it be otherwise? We live in a political culture in which some of us think the supreme issue of our time was an attempted violent overthrow of the Constitution, while other Americans think it was Hunter Biden’s laptop. There are means and institutions to arbitrate those differences. That’s what elections do. But television debates cannot do it, because television debates don’t happen unless they get buy-in from “both sides.” Therefore, television debates are designed necessarily to ratify the concept of “both sides.”
Alas, this is the system we have. Americans are presented with two realistic options, the survivors of the nominating process of our two major political parties.
Biden could have declared that he would not sully the grand office of the presidency by debating a man found to have sexually assaulted a woman by one jury and convicted of 34 felony counts by another. Instead, he rejected the structure of the Commission on Presidential Debates and issued a bold challenge to debate early. Then he fell on his face.
Some Democratic commentators are blaming moderators Jake Tapper and Dana Bash for not checking Trump’s lies and exaggerations themselves, rather than leaving it to the helpless old man across the stage. Maybe that would have changed the narrative. But it may well have backfired, making it look like three against one and highlighting Biden’s impotence.
It’s worth noting that being quick on one’s feet is not a prerequisite for the presidency. By most accounts, Biden remains quite functional behind the scenes and, certainly, has handled the job much more competently than his predecessor and would-be successor. But voters don’t get to see Biden run cabinet meetings or National Security Council sessions.
There will be plenty of opportunities for Biden to recover from this performance over the next four months. But he blew a big one last night.
A terrible night for Biden. Not that Trump did well, but his problems were totally eclipsed by Biden’s failures. At this point, people will be focusing on the fact that a vote for Biden is essentially a vote for Kamala Harris.
I agree that it’s looking more and more like a backroom deal for an open convention in August. And I don’t think that’s a bad thing anymore.
It will be interesting to try and figure out how to get that candidate on the Ohio ballot if it’s not Mr. Biden.
I’m still traveling and didn’t watch the debate, but seeing some of the clips it exceeded (in a bad way) my already low expectations.
Barring some black swan, Biden will lose IMO. I don’t see how he recovers from this. The campaign strategy of limiting Biden’s exposure to non-scripted events over the last few months makes sense now.
I also just feel bad for Biden.
The thing I haven’t seen mentioned in all of this coverage is how important the Senate and House races just became.
The ONLY way we can slow down a potential fascist President Trump is going to be through slow-walking the confirmation process, the threat of impeachments (not just POTUS), and the inability for Trump to pass any legislation that might make his plans easier.
I’ve seen that line referenced on OTB before as if it wasn’t obviously a joke. It was, and people laughed along with him, right there in the linked clip.
(Yes, the rest of his performance that night was poor, but the insinuation seems to be that he was actually befuddled when he asked those questions.)
@Tony W: Dems aren’t winning Ohio in any case now, so I’m not sure it matters.
James? May I suggest suicide? Really, when was the last time a debate had any lasting effect?
4 months is a long time.
So, Biden didn’t do so well. How did trump do?
Funny how everyone seems to forget there were 2 people in that “debate.”
@Franklin:
And if the Democrats do win Ohio, I would expect that they are already far above 270 electoral votes. I would also expect the electors chosen would vote for whomever the Democratic candidate is.
Biden had a very bad night. What’s heartbreaking is Trump’s gibberish, lies, denials and total fabrications get a pass once again. Tweedle-decent and Tweedle -dumb shit. One is showing his age and the other just shows his fat ass while lying through it. One knows how to govern and is loyal to the Constitution, the other wants to rule and demands an oath of loyalty to him, not the Constitution. One is man of character, the other has “ the morals of an alley cat “. One is empathetic, the other psychotic.
To vote for trump or his party in this day and age is a character flaw.
Btw, accusing someone of trump derangement syndrome is like saying someone has nazi derangement syndrome or Hitler derangement syndrome. Guilty as charged.
@Andy: fell bad for Biden? Feel bad for the entire plant.
@OzarkHillbilly: Mondale, Dole, Kerry, and Romney were all challengers to relatively popular incumbents. And they had already agreed to multiple debates. I very much doubt Trump will agree to a September rematch. Why would he?
I didn’t watch, but my husband did. He said he turned it off after Biden’s inability to respond to a question, but then turned it back on a bit later.
While there is quite a bit of time between now and November, impressions can have lasting effects particularly when they serve to reinforce prior understandings and personal biases. This decidedly was a Not Good performance.
Hopefully, someone somewhere has a plan for this.
I’ve spent the morning researching the spousal visa process for the UK.
@OzarkHillbilly: Indeed there were two participants. Sadly, only one performed according to expectations–the bombastic serial liar. I agree with your comment on the other thread that November is a long way from now and most of us will simply have to muddle through, whatever the outcome is then. But I do feel for the people who feel like they’ve been sucker punched today. Last night was bad. No escaping it.
Eat, drink, and be merry, for on November we die.
@James Joyner: According to the article I read last night, the September debate was already agreed to and is on the CBS (iirc) schedule. As to whether that will change, I have no idea, but remain confident in the arrogance of bombastic serial liars.
@OzarkHillbilly:
There is a lot of material in TFG’s performance that can be made part of D campaign ads.
@James Joyner:
A) It’s already scheduled.
B) Trump’s behavior is not mediated by normal logic, sound judgment and Trump are strangers.
By most accounts, Biden remains quite functional behind the scenes and, certainly, has handled the job much more competently than his predecessor and would-be successor.
The person you saw on stage last night is the same person behind the scenes. And Biden has only done a better job than Trump if you ignore inflation, the southern border, Ukraine, Russia, Iran, the Afghanistan withdrawal debacle, Israel/Palestine, etc.
You can certainly blame the Right for taking American politics down the path of tribalism, but there’s no denying that James Joyner and out political establishment have not only followed along but put their foot down on the accelerator. I mean “Biden remains quite functional behind the scenes?” That opinion is contradicted by every available piece of evidence and sustained by nothing by irrational tribal loyalty.
Sure, James, whatever happens let’s don’t analyze the nonstop firehose of fake news that happened every time Trump opened his mouth. How, exactly, did Trump “win” anything?
Objective reality: It ain’t easy debating a pathological liar.
I think the entire reason the coverage is Biden Must Step Aside For Johnny Unbeatable is because that horse won’t race itself.
Don’t forget… if you’re someone who uses a televised debate to influence your voting choices, substance isn’t likely the basis of that decision.
It’s notable that it took the FTFNYT over half a page to introduce [in .0001 font] the idea that Trump said some stuff that might not be completely true. When you or anyone quotes media…… For the 47,956th time, the media is and has always been pro-Republican, full stop. It’s always “hammer Democrats for having the temerity to exist and make excuses for Republicans” time. You have to go all the way to the famed Yahoo News to find “Biden missteps, Trump falsehoods mark debate”
@Franklin: Yup, you’re right. I don’t know why my memory has made the joke opening line my go-to of Stockdale seeming lost. Maybe an SNL parody or something ?
Biden was brilliant, clear,energetic and articulate. He provide well thought out answers on the subjects asked and the topics provided. He deliberately, carefully and slowly explained them to the dolts and idiots in the debate room. Trump was just a Gish gallop of lies, disinformation and conspiracy theories. Biden focused on the weakest, dumbest, most ludicrous arguments that Trump presented and tore those arguments to shreds decisively destroying the nonsense and clearly making his point.
I am so proud of our president. Our Democracy that must be protected from Trump. Justice Matters.
One small criticism, Biden did miss naming the strategy. “This is a strategy called the ‘Gish Gallop’. Do not be fooled by the flood of nonsense you have just heard.”.
@charontwo: Ah, so that’s potentially a bit of good news.
Trump’s likely seeing the coverage today and LOVIN’ it. So he’ll be anxious for a repeat. September is closer to the election and the stakes will be much higher for both of them.
Yes, Joe exceeded expectations according to Jill Biden. He answered all the question, he knew all the facts.
Jill Biden speaking to Joe like he’s a 3rd grader is more telling than a lot of “behind close doors” he’s a dynamo talk. And someone got a video of Jill helping Joe down the steps from the podium afterward. Not a good look.
One of the panelists on CNN afterward remarked how some Democrat governor had called worried that Biden would drag the down ballot down with him.
@TheRyGuy:
So basically only phenomena that preceded Biden, and international conflicts Biden didn’t start.
Trump was only a good president if yu ignore record job loss, slowed economic growth, a record rise in hate crime, catastrophic abortion bans, the Jan 6 terror attack, record small business failure, his COVID incompetence and mismanagement, riots, lockdowns, and zero impactful legislation besides tax cuts for billionaires.
Besides that, a rapist convicted felon who tweeted a White Power video, mocked a disabled reporter, smeared dead troops, praised Hitler, hung around with Epstein for nearly twenty years, and wanted to bang his daughter has no business representing the United States. Gross.
@OzarkHillbilly:
Trump was terrible. He babbled, rambled, and lied constantly. He was was sleazy and unlikeable. Snap polling and real-time dials indicated viewers were repelled.
This makes Biden’s lackluster showing more problemmatic, not less so. If Biden had come across better, Trump’s ick factor would be the story. Biden’s poor showing helped let Trump off the hook.
Biden did terrible, and unless he’s Trump, he’s probably finished. It’s not like lack of preparation was a factor. You can’t overcome being old, sorry. I was too young for Reagan’s first debate in 84, but I don’t think it was like that.
And if they are going to replace, who are they? A party with a good They would never have allowed itself to be in the situation in the first place.
The only caveat being is that I thought Trump was finished in 2016 after Access Hollywood, and this really feels similar.
And there goes Chevron…finally, American corporations can breathe again, freed at last from the wrathful power of science.
@Jen:
This, unfortunately, gets us to Dr. T’s theme about weak parties. There is no someone.
@Modulo Myself: Forget guns and abortion. That, abolishing Chevron, is the cause for which the Koch Bros created the Federalist Society.
@OzarkHillbilly: You touch on something that infuriates me. The democrats have a legitimate argument to make here. Was Biden at the top of his game (for whatever reason)? No. Trump said that Pelosi took responsibility for Jan 6… Really? On what planet? Because it sure didn’t happen on planet earth. And that wasn’t the only bizarre thing Trump said.
And the democratic flacks had the opportunity to get out there to zealously and forcefully make this argument so it has a change to pierce through the low-information voters.
Instead, they’re running around with their hair on fire. And that’s no way to win an election.
Due to difficulties getting toddlers to sleep while on vacation, I turned on the debate 40 minutes in, and after receiving a dozen panicked texts from friends watching it. What I saw was a fairly solid performance from Biden. A little plodding, but pretty confident compared to Trumps gish gallop.
Reading TPM’s play by play though, it seems those first 40 minutes were unbearable, and that I turned it on right when Biden found his footing.
@Modulo Myself: And they just announced narrowing the interpretation of obstructing an official proceeding for a J6 defendant. Textualism – A, B, C or otherwise means just A, B, or C. A root problem is we have no statutes clearly addressing Trump’s unprecedented effort to steal the last election. Now the Court’s going to make sure we aren’t able to stretch anything to cover the situation.
Yeah, they were saying the same thing about Romney in 2012. I think y’all are still traumatized from 2016. Quit your bedwetting. We’ll see each other on the other side of this.
He could have come out and said, ‘Look, folks, I have to apologize for my voice. I have a cold. So you may have to strain to hear the truth, while my opponent will lie loudly.’
He could have done a lot of things. Any competent debater could have taken Trump apart. @DK or @MarkedMan or certainly Joyner, or a dozen other people here, could have slapped him all around the room. Thanks to that performance we can only attack Trump while offering nothing of our own. That’s a losing stance.
The world’s only superpower fielded an 81 year-old man and a 78 year-old psychopath. Unless you want to include worm-brain. Making matters worse, the whole fucking world is failing at the same time. Europe is weak, trying to regain some its strength, but very unlikely to succeed. Russia is a belligerent stage 4 cancer patient, spiraling. China is in demographic and social collapse. Ukraine is doomed. The Palestinians are doomed.
The American post-war order is coming apart at the seams, and that means war and famine on an epic scale. We just lost the fight on climate change. Western civilization itself is sclerotic, as mumbling and as shuffling as the ghost of Joe Biden we saw last night.
Age is real. I could have taken Trump down last night, but I could not have beaten me from 10 years ago. A man’s got to know his limitations.
I for one welcome our new AI overlords.
Bad all the way around.Trump was his usual lying and dissembling self, but he’s been ‘normalized’ to such an extent that people do not care anymore, certainly not in the Media writ large. Biden? Evidently he forgot to take the energizer drinks that Trump suggested he would take.
4 months to go.
I’ve reached the point where I’m hoping that Democrats partake in what Republicans have been doing for years – administer a shock to the system. Open the up the Convention. Why not consider Whitmer, Shapiro, Harris, Newsom, Klobuchar, or whomever?
I think the GOP and Trump would meltdown.
@DeD:
You’re whistling past the graveyard. Everyone knew Obama had the skills to do better in a second debate. Biden is not Obama.
I think Biden was off his game early on and it played into Republican propaganda about him being senile. Its definitely an unforced error. I do think he can recover and one thing that will help is to do interviews and press conferences to show he’s still on his game.
Biden’s also lucky today that the Supreme Court bigfooted the debate news with the corrupt chevron and Jan 6 obstruction rulings.
It’s good to see SCOTUS finally overturned Chevron. And fun to know the FedSoc has a bunch of follow-on cases lined up to complete the overturning of the 20th century — not because of any fancy legal mumbo-jumbo, but because it was just all so wrong.
Bush V Gore was the ultimate Familyblog that people didn’t take seriously. And here we are.
@al Ameda:
If it’s anyone, it’s Newsom. He has the fundraising ability. He has California money. I love Whitmer, but Michigan money is not California money. Shapiro’s a Jew – not the time. And Kamala is just limp.
@Andy: Sweet mother of God to use the Catholics expression….
Well the Democrats better pull out every knife. The only hope is a relentlessly well targeted negative campaign with a specific focus on the Swing States and Swing Voters in such states. Not bloody professional class Progressives in the urbane urban echo chambres.
Bloody hell, mentally must prepare for this…
need to turn off all news alerts on american political news.
@DK:
That’s what had me tearing out my hair. Trump kept making outrageous claims, like migrants are killing hundreds of thousands of Americans. Trump kept putting balls on a tee and Biden kept wandering out of the batter’s box nattering about trivia.
My impression was somebody decided Biden could show how compos mentis he is by remembering a lot of facts. Someone commented they should have brought in standup comics to prep Biden for an ad lib roast of Trump. If there’s a second debate, there’d better be a completely different prep team.
@Michael Reynolds: Sherrod Brown’s been mentioned, and he’s really good, a progressive who can connect with blue collar types. But he’s the only hope of holding a Senate seat from Ohio, which we desperately need. Ah well. 2028 beckons. Assuming there’s an honest election in 2028.
@Michael Reynolds:
He could have done a lot of things. Any competent debater could have taken him apart.
Debate is like the stupidest form of communication possible. Unless there’s a guarantee of good faith or mutual interest, i.e. a lack of rhetoric and a desire to win, what you get is not great. American politics zeroes in debate because of its anti-intellectualism and an aversion to actual democracy. Trump’s bullshit on abortion and babies being killed everyday is just what happens when you have decades of well-financed stupidity as the only means of expression.
Trump would have looked worse against a person who answered their own questions without causing vast amounts of pity but he would not have lost last night. You can’t prove that he’s lying through his teeth. An ironist could put him down or force him to humiliate himself or someone with empathy could have made him look tiny, but you can’t win against that persona.
Grateful to Joe Biden’s defeat of Trump and his accomplishments as president. I would vote for Biden in November. That said…
I know lots of mid-80s people. Most have mild cognitive impairment, but can speak coherently and organize their thoughts.
But I also know or have known elders with dementia. The first thing to consider with a person suffering dementia is that the person has no awareness of their loss of their mental decline. There are also physical manifestations, such as mumbling and unsteady gait.
My fear is that Biden’s decline may occur rapidly and dramatically during the campaign, thus giving voters no good choice (as they felt with the Clinton/Trump match), which would siphon votes off to 3rd-party candidates and give Trump the presidency. Such a contest would be about public virtue versus mental acuity.
Given the number of Trump supporters, I am not at all confident that public virtue (and a candidate with cognitive decline) would prevail over mental acuity (and a candidate who is crazy like a fox, cheats on his spouses, a felon, a sexual predator, and motivated solely by power and greed).
Kamala Harris gave a good performance in her interview with Anderson Cooper after the debate.
In my view, Biden would best serve his country now by stepping aside and support Harris as the Democratic nominee.
I am convinced that he should not run if he truly does not want Trump to win in November.
That’s the problem—we’ve emphasized youth to the point that our culture doesn’t have a graceful way to still incorporate the wisdom of elders while gently helping them exit the main stage.
I know that now in my sixties I wouldn’t be able to pull off the ridiculous 100+ hr workweeks I did when I was 40.
Sadly appearances are ninety percent of the game in debate. If one were to simply read the transcript of last night’s debate one would conclude Biden won it running away. His answers for the most part were cogent and on point even if he didn’t address some issues like Dobbs and abortion in greater depth. Trump on the other hand mouthed lies and nonsense. But what most will take away from the debates was that Biden appeared old and feeble and Trump was vigorous. I grieve for my country.
It wasn’t good, but I’m not sure it moves the needle much. Does anyone not know that he is a very old man? That’s pretty much built in at this point, like Trump being self-aggrandizing.
I think the panic is premature.
The only realistic way to swap out Biden would be for him to resign this summer, and everything just default to Harris. The fantasies of an open convention are just insane — an open convention would create huge rifts in the party that the candidate would have almost no time to fix, because the convention is so late. Passing over the black, female VP would be a huge slap in the face to a large chunk of the Democratic coalition.
And Harris isn’t a great campaigner either. Less likely to keel over dead on stage at a campaign event, granted, but not great.
@Michael Reynolds:
I could see a Newsom (slash) Whitmer ticket.
Republicans would love to face Gavin Newsom, but Newsom isn’t afraid, and bonus points, Newsom’s ‘ex’ Kimberly Guilfoyle is doing time with Don Jr these days, so there’s that entertainment element. Also, plus except for using CA as an ATM, they hate CA anyway. And, Whitmer might be enough to save Michigan for Democrats.
Bring it.
I didn’t watch the debate. I’ve been reading reactions. I’m becoming skeptical that this is a catastrophe. I think many people had expectations that somebody can come on stage and hip check Trump and make him stop spewing lies. That’s not possible. Also, there’s a bunch of people out there who love these lies and eat them up. There’s even a couple of them who comment here.
Courts can’t really make him stop lying, either. Even though he didn’t take the stand, he lied his way through the rape prosecution and through the “falsification of business records” trial. The courts and juries simply decided “Nope, those are lies, we’re not having it” and rendered judgement.
People like me are in the position of depending on Joe Citizen to do that with Trump politically. And Joe Citizen doesn’t seem interested in doing that. Which is why the political situation makes us very anxious. I get that Biden did not give a satisfying response, but I think there isn’t a satisfying response to this game. There isn’t something that stops Trump in his tracks. That’s legal.
Let’s try and also remember that four years ago, lots of people were saying that Biden was the only one who could beat Trump.
@Michael Reynolds:
Lt. Briggs sure didn’t.
John Stewart’s reaction “Resting 25th amendment Face”
CNN panel reaction. With Biden struggling to walk down two steps after the debate.
@JKB:
I don’t make much of that. I’m two decades younger than Biden and steps or walking across large empty spaces without something to hold onto are difficult for me than I’d like.
If you’re wondering why my gait is unsteady its because of all the medications I’m on.
It was a shit show for Biden. Sure, he got somewhat better over time, but that was because he was God-awful at the beginning. He went from terrible to bad to mediocre. Trump was Trump, he’s lying scum, but he was competent lying scum. I don’t know what you can do, you can’t realistically force Biden out. He looked old, slow and even confused at times. He had a terrible night, but to those who say he needs to bring his A game if there is another debate, forget it, he doesn’t have an A game, maybe his best is a C game.
In addition, strategically he was awful. Trump handed him a softball with the golf game stuff. His answer had to be something like “stop wasting time, the last thing the American people care about the president’s golf game. Besides, of course you can win club championships, you own the clubs and everyone knows you cheat at golf”. At the time I thought it was a shame Trump wasn’t debating Obama. He would have taunted Trump, really got his goat.
You can’t refute all of Trump’s lies, just choose a couple. IMO, the economy was one to talk about. GDP growth under Trump was 6.8%, under Biden so far it is 8.4%. Yes, I know Trump had 2020 which lowered the overall, but I am in total favor of using anything other than outright lies at this point. No you go low, we go high. Biden’s best moment last night was the “morals of an alley cat” (I just wished he had followed it up with “but that is really not fair to alley cats”)
@gVOR10:
Then the campaign manager and strategist(s) aren’t earning their salaries.
I’m somewhat convinced that my “plan for every possible disaster” mindset is 50% innate, 50% reinforced by my previous employment. In both politics and PR, you game out everything, and I mean EVERYTHING you possibly can.
This poor performance was not inevitable, but it was predictable. Biden is older, and he has overcome a stutter. This combination is sort of a nightmare scenario for any situation that calls for rapid responses. The campaign should absolutely have a plan for this. If they don’t, they’re derelict in their duties.
@SenyorDave:
For a few years I was in the care of this dermatologist. My comment about him- He’s got the bedside of a undernourished 400-lb gorilla and I’m probably being unfair to undernourished 400-lb gorillas,
So much focus on what anyone with an ounce of insight and not possessed by TDS has known since the 2020 election: Joe Biden is and continues to be in rapid decline.
The important observation is that we have an addled old man running the country (Heh. Isn’t that what Hur said?) while a group of democrat careerists and media shills (not to mention blogsites) have actively sought, out of pure self interest and total disregard for the nation, to hide or mischaracterize Joe Biden’s true profoundly impaired status. Shorter: they have all perpetrated fraud on the country.
And they dare bring up character and honesty.
@Jack:
Biden is not a rapist; Trump is.
Biden is not a felon; Trump is.
Biden is not a pathological liar; Trump is.
Biden believes in Democracy; Trump does not.
Biden believes in the rule of law; Trump is openly corrupt.
Biden believes in our allies; Trump supports our enemies.
Biden is a patriot; Trump is a traitor.
Trump is a piece of shit, and so are his supporters.
@ Jack
Yes. The Republican machine is a bunch of nazi wannabees who kiss the ring of their amoral leader. And they have been searching for their leader for decades.
I’ve always liked the parable (often quoted by Charlie Sykes) of showing up to a meeting where one of the attendees has antlers growing out of his head. No matter what is on the agenda, you’ll be focused on the antlers.
Last night, Biden’s frailty was his antlers. It distracted from Trump’s verbal and moral diarrhea. It distracted from the inadequacies of the CNN format. You just couldn’t stop looking at the non-stop images of Biden on his half of the split-screen.
I did not watch the “debate” last night. I have seen a clip or two today on the internet.
Just a few minutes ago I heard President Biden speaking at a rally today in North Carolina. He sounded great! Gotta’ wonder what kind of potion he took to make a remarkable recovery from whatever was ailing him? Mountain Dew?
Calm tf down, everyone.
https://youtu.be/NNbpReScD_I?si=A5v5LhzwOxu2-Tuv
@DeD:
It’s been a while since I last panicked. I remember a lot about it, but not that it felt particularly enjoyable or that I would want to panic again soon (or, really, ever). So, I’m at a loss.
I am worried. Very. But it’s still early in the campaign, there’s another debate in a few months (No, Biden shouldn’t back down from that one). I’ll really worry if there’s a repeat of last night in any form.
@SenyorDave:
Meh. Just watched his North Carolina rally. He was smiling, energetic, LOUD, forceful. State of the Union Joe, redux. Where was this guy most of last night? (We saw flashes for a minute or two when he was deviating from his prepared lines, but way too late.)
I don’t know what his debate prep team was doing or saying at Camp David for the last week, but I can guess. He was given very bad advice. They failed him and by extension America and Western democracy. Miserably.
@Jack:
Anyone not possessed by Trump Dickriding Syndrome knows Trump — a criminal, traitor, and lunatic who incited the Jan 6 terror attack — spews nonsensical word salad that’s full of lies and is unfit for office.
Anyone with a shred of decency is declining to support a Hitler-praising rapist who said this of his longtime friend Jeff Epstein: “I’ve known Jeff for fifteen years. Terrific guy. He’s a lot of fun to be with. It is even said that he likes beautiful women as much as I do, and many of them are on the younger side.”
Rapists of a feather, flock together.
@Gustopher:
The panic is necessary for Jen O’Malley Dillon, Anita Dunn, Joe and Jill Biden, and the rest to wake up and understand what they’re doing is not good enough.
Over-reahearesed, hyper-handled, overconfident, quiet, calm Joe is not working. The Biden that showed up at the debate doesn’t get that he is the underdog in this race. An underdog would have came out shouting, swinging, and fighting.
The Biden campaign is high on its own supply. There’s no other explanation for sending Biden onstage to (try to) recall statistics, numbers, and percentages and recite them in a hoarse whisper. Instead of repeating variations of “Sorry, I have a cold — but this racist, rapist, Hitler-praising, border-bill-killing convicted felon incited a terror attack on Congress and left the country with chaos, riots, abortion bans, and record job loss. Y’all really want more of the crazy? Like, for real??”
The panic might get this stubbornly insular campaign to see, finally, that they are the underdog and need to run like it.
The panic is preferable to the fatal but then-understandable complacency around Hillary Clinton in 2016.
@DeD:
Biden damaged himself badly last night, in the worst debate performance ever. It was Biden’s opportunity to demonstrate that he is capable of taking Trump head on, demolishing his BS. He failed, and the images of him are now part of countless memes.
I don’t know what percent of undecided voters who were watching the debate last night, or saw excerpts of it, also saw anything from the South Carolina rally. But I’d guess the number is less than 10%. Of those, what percent were swayed to believe that last night was an aberration? Multiply those two percentages together, and you get a very tiny slice of damage control. You can apply the same math to other campaign appearances, and how they trickle into the communications channels, alongside the flood of BIDEN IS UNFIT! content.
Plus, there might not be another debate. What’s Trump’s incentive for engaging again, if he got what he wanted, a painfully frail, confused Biden?
Confidence is shaken. After hearing for months that Biden would be as energetic, articulate, and convincing as he was at the State of the Union, we got…that.
I’m not making these observations because I’m invested in seeing Biden removed from the ticket. I’d love to see the campaign recover. However, I don’t see how that’s going to happen. That may be just my limited intellect talking, but the paths forward don’t seem paved with golden opportunities. I look forward to proof otherwise, but I’m not going to engage in wishful thinking either.
So please, don’t tell me to calm the f@$% down. It’s time to take a deep breath and make a sober appraisement of the situation, and the options forward. That’s the opposite of hyper-ventilation.
This election will turn on Dobbs, Ukraine and the rule of law. That hasn’t changed at all.
@gVOR10:
100% this. Political malpractice by Biden’s arrogant and insular senior advisors. No, it was not just about an old man with no Teleprompter. Avoidably-bad debate prep decisions were on display:
Heads should roll, but probably won’t. This is the best-resourced campaign in history: they have every tool necessary to make their case. They have more data, technology, and manpower than any campaign ever. There is no excuse for these kinds of unforced errors.
People with cognitive impairment have good days and bad days, but the trend is ALWAYS to get worse. That goes for Biden AND Trump.
I hated Joe Biden for his treatment of Anita Hill, but I appreciate his presidency. However, I believe he should step aside.
I have never seen an elder who presented as Joe Biden did last night recover for a significant period of time.
He needs to gracefully transition to President Emeritus.
@Kingdaddy: Well said.
@Michael Reynolds: And Jack doesn’t care about any of those points, or did you miss
@Michael Reynolds:
Thank you for the standard, juvenile, talking points.
If Iran launches missiles tonight; N Korea moves on S Korea, are you comfortable that The man of the vacant stare and obvious profound cognitive impairment is calling the shots?
You are aware that Biden went to a post debate rally last night, and thanked the people of N Carolina.
Yep. He’s got my confidence.
@Jack: Ha! Gotta love defenders of immature drama queen Trump pretending to dislike “juvenile talking points.” Y’all think no one notices the hypocrisy?
Iran did launch missiles a few months ago. Biden’s defense department handled it well.
When Trump’s boy Putin moved on Ukraine, Biden rallied the free world to prevent Kyiv from falling. Traitor Trump praised Putin. Then later said he wouldn’t care if Putin attacked Europe.
When China moved on Hong Kong, Trump did nothing. But the crotchgrabbing convicted felon who wrote love letters to Kim Jong and saluted his communist generals would support South Korea? Pfft.
No one here has confidence in Trump supporters’ ability not to be amoral phonies selling out for a rapist orange Epstein-bestie who left America in shambles and chaos. Y’all have no credibility.
@Jack: As opposed to a man whose senior advisors are Mike Flynn, Stephen Miller and Steve Bannon? Who by all accounts has a complete lack of knowledge about foreign affairs, openly admired Kim Jong Un? A rapist who has zero moral compass? As president tried to extort Ukraine? I’d sooner want Elmo from Sesame Street running the country, I’d even take Elmo from Tesla.
I automatically assume any people who support Trump have no moral compass. And it’s not like he hid a bang-up job in his first term.
Trump is a convicted felon who has sexually assaulted women and who oscillated between complete lies and empty blather last night.
Biden is an accomplished politician who lost his way a few times trying to deliver canned responses several minutes in length.
The only reason we’re concerned about this election is because those inclined to support Biden are actually capable of feeling and showing concern.
It’s a rigged game for the GOP currently due to gerrymandering and the EC and they know this. They exploit it and we fall into their trap because we worry about electing a not great Democrat when they have zero issue with electing a felon and a rapist with an R next to his name.
We’re not playing the same game, we refuse to play their game, and we wonder why we lose.
If last night worried you, you should be MORE inclined to vote for Biden. Not less. It means you care. And if you care do everything you can to keep a democracy-hating fascist out of the White House.
Am I wrong? If so, why?
@Kazzy: Neither I nor anyone who comments on this blog who supported Biden before the debate is switching to Trump. The concern is that truly undecided voters had their worst fears about Biden reinforced. They may decide Trump is the less bad option. Or just stay home in despair.
@James Joyner: Then, as a country, we deserve what we get.
But maybe if we didn’t all play into the game by writing breathlessly about how bad it was…
How many undecideds watched versus how many are just reading media narratives?
Maybe more reporting/blogging on this?
https://www.newsweek.com/latino-voters-donald-trump-joe-biden-debate-election-1918795
Had Trump stumbled, mumbled and basically gone through stretches of incoherent rambling, we here would all be doing victory laps.
Joe and his enablers are following the Feinstein script. Keep the party in the dark. Don’t admit the evident mental decline. Hold on to the office no matter what. Joe spends a week holed up out of sight. Trump does 3 rallies. The contrast is striking. This election isn’t just about November. This election is about November 2027 or August 2028, when Biden will be 3-4 years older. Does anyone really think his faculties won’t be seriously eroded by then based on last night?
How the phuck is Biden going to be able to do retail campaigning? Hit the hustings? Do a whistlestop tour? Aggressively sell his message? He can’t go out more than once or twice a week. And while it takes all my energy to say this DK is correct that his advisors seriously betrayed him. Or maybe they were on the sidelines thinking, “we spent two days on abortion and black dissatisfaction talking points!!!! What happened!!!” As they tear their hair out.
He’s done 2 formal press conferences in 2 years. He’s shielded from non teleprompter events. No other modern President has given fewer open pressers. Now we know why.
It’s clear that we have on our side delusional Democrats to match the delusional Republicans that support trump no matter how insane his bile.
Joe proved Maher, Carville and Axelrod prescient. Open the convention and believe in the power of our policies and stop mimicking the cult of personality GOP with our gainsaying of the disastrous performance last night.
@The Q:
The Woodrow Wilson script. It was used for FDR also.
The NYT has chimed in–
It is a reckless gamble and far too many Democrats still have their heads in the sand. Democracy is at risk this November.
In addition at least five Times columnists are calling for Biden to step aside also. They include Kristoff, Friedman, and Krugman.
@SenyorDave:
Animal for President! I like Sweetums but he isn’t bright enough for the job.
Republicans always lie in the Presidential Debates.
Bush
SwiftLiars
Not AWOL from TANG. debunked by Dan Rather with TANG Memos.
McCain
Mother’s-health exception/loophole to bans on late-term abortion being abused with mental health.
Joe the not Plumber debunked by State whistleblowers with Government database searches.
Romney
Obama: The ’80s called, they want their foreign policy back
Benghazi attack: “I’m outraged by the attacks on American diplomatic missions in Libya and Egypt and by the death of an American consulate worker in Benghazi. … It’s disgraceful that the Obama Administration’s first response was not to condemn attacks on our diplomatic missions, but to sympathize with those who waged the attacks.” Obama didn’t call Benghazi a terrorist attack until 14 days later. – Debunked by Candy Crowley .
Trump
Hunter Biden laptop story debunked as Russian disinformation by 51 ex US intelligence officials
@Jack:
If a missile is coming our way, Trump will surrender. Yes, I trust Biden, he’s been an excellent president.
You are in a cult of personality around a rapist, a fraud and traitor. He’s your golden calf. So dance, monkey, dance.
Democrats threaten to move to thwart the will of Democrat primary voters with a coup to oust Joe Biden. They must destroy democracy to save democracy….apparently
Jack, unlike the “democratic” GOP, Democrats are free to speak out against our leaders when we see obvious issues unlike the feckless caulksuckers in the GOP who hope Trump grabs them by their dicks and molests them into subservient obeisance as you are a good example along with 98% of Republicans.
@JKB:
I don’t remember having the opportunity to vote for any other Democrat in the primaries. No one else ran. Blame deference for Biden, not undemocratic tendencies of the Democratic Party.
I, for one, desperately wanted someone other than Biden to vote for, because it was apparent to me that he was too infirm.
LOL TDS alive and well. Evidence be damned. Until COVID it was glorious.
Trumps mistake was listening to the (vomit) experts. Biden has been a miserable mess YMMV The people saw Biden last night. A national embarrassment. Period.
It’s fun to watch JKB and Jack prove the classic adage about Republicans running dirt is 110% true:
Every accusation is a confession.
@al Ameda:
Again, I think the best strategy for dealing with his lies is to pretend that he really believes this crap, and laugh at him for being so gullible and misinformed. What a loser; who wants a President who doesn’t have the faintest clue what is really going on? There’s no defense against that — you can either double down on the truth of the obvious lie, or admit you were lying for effect. And either way you look weak.
Leaving aside the Sturm and Drang, the question for Democrats and anyone who wants Trump to lose is the best way to accomplish that. Collectively, Democrats have boxed themselves in and don’t have any good options – only bad and risky ones:
– Stick with Biden and hope for the best.
– Get a different candidate and hope for the best.
Personally, I think the first option was the best one until this debate. Now I think the scale has tipped to the second option. Problem is that may not even be possible anymore because of ballot rules in various states. I’ve been pointing out for months now the risk of Biden having a “senior moment” at the wrong time and this was probably the worst time. No argument is going to convince what people saw with their own eyes, and what they’ll see again and again and again in media and ads.
Trying to argue to persuadable voters to vote for Biden after this is a huge hill to climb, but there is also the problem of a bases that isn’t energized and just got deflated. Biden hasn’t been a popular candidate among Democrats and now this.
I don’t see any way out except hope and hope is not a strategy.
I think Jon Stewart sums up the situation the best at the end. WASF.
Perspective.
Biden debate performance:
– not that good.
OTOH:
Latest poll
– Biden 45% (+1)
– Trump 44%
Previous poll was tied.
Most people don’t watch debates.
I’m a bit of a politics nerd, and I didn’t watch the Sunak/Starmer debate last night.
Question at gunpoint:
– “Your choice, John: watch leaders debate, watch another England football match, or die horribly?”
Me:
– “Exactly how horribly?”
@JohnSF:
https://x.com/umichvoter/status/1806786996704043009
@Andy: How on earth could Biden have only lost a point? Then again, it’s just day one.
Nice little bump for Trump, but can he sustain it? In the past, debate bumps have tended to fade.
@Andy:
Fair point.
Wait for the poll of polls?
Can’t help thinking, Dems made a mistake selecting Harris as VP.
Not that she’s as bad as some seem to make out, IMO, but she seems a bit “marmite”: those who don’t like her really don’t like her, it seems.
More an internal “party pleaser” than anything else?
That seems to be a US thing: getting a top tier person with governor/senate track as veep seems tricky, perhaps?
If Whitmer was VP, or Newsom, or etc the decision would be obvious.
Could the Dems select a new leader without descending into a catfight?
And what is this thing about some states having closed the nominations for the ballot?
Is this real?
@Jack:
Yes, Trump Dickriding Syndrome is alive and well. But you won’t find the amnesia you’re looking for here.
It was glorious before Trump: US economic growth was slower in Trump’s first three years than in Obama’s last three. Not to mention the spike in hate crime as Trump’s hatemongering and bullying greenlighted domestic terrorists in Charlottesville and elsewhere and exhausted the nation with daily craziness — contributing to his 2018 midterm shellacking and 2019 impeachment.
Then Trump screwed up the COVID response and worsened COVID outcomes, which he owns and does not get to erase. As much as his fanboys love to pretend his failed presidency lasted only three years.
His unhinged, criminal response to his election loss and subsequent criminal, reckless retention of national security documents was icing on the cake.
Kudos to Biden for cleaning up those messes.
@JohnSF:
Catfight used to be our default state. Biden could release his delegates and call for new leadership to be chosen at the convention. Known as an ‘open convention,’ back when conventions mattered. Dem unity these last few years has been anomalous.
Biden could anoint someone. Everyone loves Whitmer, but she’s a woman. A risk? Don’t know. Newsom has the fundraising and the media savvy, but he has San Francisco hanging around his neck. Shapiro’s Jewish – the Jewish-Democrat link has been damaged, not sure how badly or how permanently. Beshear is interesting but he’s from Kentucky and no one outside the state has heard of him. Does he have skeletons? Don’t know, he hasn’t been vetted. Sherrod Brown? Need him in the Senate. Buttigieg? A gay man? And of course Kamala, who everyone has forgotten until recently. Do we pass over a Black woman, in the Democratic Party?
I almost want to see them fight. Maybe a winner would emerge. Show me your teeth, as Madonna sang.
@Michael Reynolds:
I’ve seen a LOT of Dem politicianwho impress me on very brief views on UK news (I could go a’ hunting on the interwebs, but I’m not quite that sad)
But a lot are House types, who probably aren’t going to get picked.
I mean, I have bordering on a man-crush on Adam Schiff.
Elijah Cummings, Jerry Nadler, Cedric Richmond, AOC, etc.
I’d dance a fandango if we had them available on the Labour benches in the Commons.
And quite a few more whose names I’ve forgot.
There seem to be a LOT of really excellent Dem representatives.
Seriously: on the news I can usually spot Dem or Rep without the captions, depending on how they come across as smart, articulate, informed and, well, decent.
(OK, I like the Democratic Party. Mea culpa.)
But that doesn’t seem to be sufficient for the US President, where senate and/or governor experience seems to be the requirement.
But there you seem to have plenty of pretty impressive folks, on first sight:
Hickenlooper, Carper, Shaheen, Hassan, Warner, Kaine, Brooker, Newsom, Cooper etc etc
Any of those would be heavy hitters in any European parliament, and leader candidates for Labour (if they could mod the accent a bit; and tack left a tad, lol)
Perhaps that’s the problem: the Dems have too many very good prospects, but none that are obviously the “King in Waiting”?
Biden’s base has held, solidified, and appears to be energized after the debate. He could stutter on Fifth Avenue and they would still support him. Many opinion writers are oblivious to the strength of the online movement that has formed behind Biden.
@JohnSF:
Saving grace as per reports watching rate was low. Less saving grace, watching versus talk about results after may transmit effect.
Frankly the idea of changing at this point is unrealistic as per the US framework. It will almost certainly not functionally go smoothly nor well, and only convey panic (panic not without reason but panic).
The Republican game of doubling down despite the weakness (see Trump) is likely the better.
The Democrats best game I should think is
(a) Go negative, massively negative.
(b) Such negativity should be focused on those factors and points that the Swing Voter in Key Geography dislikes – not continue the Threat To Democracy blah blah abstraction that appeals to the University educated professional classes – those are already sold. Conversion and supression.
– the abortion and contraception,
(c) Stop pitching to the Lefty Left – there is no sign in the statistics this fraction is going to enable Win in the key swing geographies, and racking up extra votes in California and New York and DC is utterly pointless.
A hope may be ongoing moderation of inflation – the pocketbook effect. So long as the Houthi attacks in Red Sea can be suppressed to mitigate shipping attacks, this supply chain issue is becoming quite problematic.