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After months of anticipation, Donald Trump and his election rival Joe Biden were scheduled to meet on a debate stage for the first time in Cleveland on Tuesday night, in what could be Trump’s last best chance to turn around. the presidential race and win reelection. .
Trump, suffering weeks of negative revelations in the news and dire poll numbers, needs a big score in the first presidential debate to steer the national conversation away from the failing economy, the coronavirus pandemic and its staggering tax evasion, say analysts.
Those factors could see a Trump performance that is even more aggressive than usual.
“Trump will go after Biden vigorously, to divert attention from his own problems, including reports of his tax evasion and business failures,” said Brad Bannon, a Washington-based Democratic strategist. “Much of Biden’s support is based on his calm demeanor, which contrasts well with the president’s erratic personality.
“Therefore, it is important that Biden responds to Trump without losing his cool and smiling as he surgically cuts the president.”
Biden’s advisers, for their part, say that a big debate outcome for the Democratic nominee would be that not much happens. The challenge, as they see it, is for Biden to appear firm and contrast to Trump, and resist being dragged into a mud fight.
Biden himself seems to recognize the dangers of encountering Trump in his preferred terrain of insults and mockery.
“I hope they don’t fool me into a fight with this guy, because that’s the only place he’s comfortable,” Biden told donors at a fundraiser in Delaware earlier this month. “This is a guy who is absolutely in bad taste. Totally tasteless. So pointing it out doesn’t do much good. “
Only 35 days until the presidential election on November 3, and early voting in person is already underway, while around 10 million ballots have been mailed across the country, a record caused by the coronavirus crisis. .
The conventional wisdom about presidential debates is that they don’t move the race much, except when they do. Former Vice President Al Gore was criticized for sighing during his first debate in 2000 with George W. Bush. A poorly prepared exit by Barack Obama against Mitt Romney in her first debate of 2012 gave new life to the challenger’s campaign.
But the stakes surrounding the first debate of the 2020 cycle may be unique. The race has proven to be historically stable throughout the year, according to poll analysts, and the big moments of the campaign – including national conventions and Biden’s selection of Kamala Harris as a running mate – don’t seem to have moved the needle.
For weeks, the Trump campaign has been touting the debate as the moment that would finally alter the race, delighting donors with the fantasy of a resourceful Trump running circles around a sleepy Biden.
Trump went so far this weekend as to demand a “drug test” before the debate of Biden, whom Trump has baselessly accused of taking “performance-enhancing drugs.”
Biden laughed at the suggestion, but his campaign delivered a lacerating response.
“Vice President Biden intends to deliver the answers to his discussions in words,” said a Biden spokeswoman. saying Political. “If the president thinks his best case is based on urine, he can.”
Biden and Trump are scheduled to participate in three debates in total. The first 90-minute game of the series will be held at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio, and will be moderated by Fox News host Chris Wallace, who has proven in the past to be a tough interviewer for the president.
On Monday, Wallace said he hoped to be “as invisible as possible” on stage. “If I’ve done my job right, at the end of the night, people will say, ‘That was a great debate, who was the moderator?'” Wallace told Fox.
Wallace has chosen six topics for the night: the records of the candidates in office; The Supreme Court; COVID-19; the economy; “Race and violence in our cities”; and the integrity of the election.
But an explosive New York Times report over the weekend showing that Trump paid zero federal taxes in 10 of the past 15 years, and that Trump has hundreds of millions in mysterious overdue debt, could be one of many issues upsetting the planned procedures.
Biden is expected to highlight how much Trump wealth was inherited and to draw a contrast between Scranton, Pennsylvania, where Biden grew up, and Fifth Avenue in Manhattan, the site of Trump’s most famous golden tower.
Biden could also underscore the dangers of a president denying climate change by pointing to the current wildfire crisis in the west. Faced with new allegations of sexual assault, Trump may seek to revive the allegations against Biden.
Trump has already signaled that Biden’s family is fair game, with sustained attacks on his son Hunter Biden, whose relations in Ukraine Republicans tried to use to confuse the impeachment inquiry.
But Trump seems to need more political advantages from the debate than the brief coup that a few sharp attacks could generate.
Rather than winning an argument, strategists say, debates are about making an impression on viewers that could push a crucial few into one field or another.
“Trump needs a Biden collapse,” Republican political consultant Mike Murphy, a frequent critic of Trump, said on his podcast. “Because Trump needs something to happen on the 29th that gives him the whole month to work.”
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