Presidential debate megathread (debate 1: June 27, 9pm EDT, CNN)

[wbrocks67]

https://twitter.com/PoliticusSarah/status/1807453559081873644

Backs up the notion that Biden's campaign"s polling is seeing different things than public polls.

Whether they're more accurate or not is impossible to tell until election day, unfortunately.

Honestly, I am amenable to the possibility that their polling is showing something different, but I do think they need to put their money where the mouth is. It will still be taken with a grain of salt, but I think they should leak some of their internals if they're truly saying what they say they're saying

[Progressive Pessimist]

https://twitter.com/PoliticusSarah/status/1807453559081873644

Backs up the notion that Biden's campaign"s polling is seeing different things than public polls.

Whether they're more accurate or not is impossible to tell until election day, unfortunately.

Honestly, I am amenable to the possibility that their polling is showing something different, but I do think they need to put their money where the mouth is. It will still be taken with a grain of salt, but I think they should leak some of their internals if they're truly saying what they say they're saying

I think that's fair.

[wbrocks67]

https://twitter.com/PoliticusSarah/status/1807453559081873644

Backs up the notion that Biden's campaign"s polling is seeing different things than public polls.

Whether they're more accurate or not is impossible to tell until election day, unfortunately.

Honestly, I am amenable to the possibility that their polling is showing something different, but I do think they need to put their money where the mouth is. It will still be taken with a grain of salt, but I think they should leak some of their internals if they're truly saying what they say they're saying

I think that's fair.

Conversely, I'm sort of shocked that Trump's team has not leaked any post-debate internals. I imagine they are staying mostly away to let Dems implode but them just leaking an internal would help drive it even further. They've been silent on fundraising and polls - two things which they could've used to bolster the case even further - but haven't. That's intriguing to me a bit.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

https://twitter.com/PoliticusSarah/status/1807453559081873644

Backs up the notion that Biden's campaign"s polling is seeing different things than public polls.

Whether they're more accurate or not is impossible to tell until election day, unfortunately.

Honestly, I am amenable to the possibility that their polling is showing something different, but I do think they need to put their money where the mouth is. It will still be taken with a grain of salt, but I think they should leak some of their internals if they're truly saying what they say they're saying

I think that's fair.

Conversely, I'm sort of shocked that Trump's team has not leaked any post-debate internals. I imagine they are staying mostly away to let Dems implode but them just leaking an internal would help drive it even further. They've been silent on fundraising and polls - two things which they could've used to bolster the case even further - but haven't. That's intriguing to me a bit.

Good point.

[emailking]

Trump's goal is for Biden to stay in the race. That's why he and the campaign keep saying now it's going to be Biden vs. Trump whereas before the debate he kept saying Biden wouldn't make it to the general. So they don't want to do anything to make it more likely he's replaced.

[wbrocks67]

Trump's goal is for Biden to stay in the race. That's why he and the campaign keep saying now it's going to be Biden vs. Trump whereas before the debate he kept saying Biden wouldn't make it to the general. So they don't want to do anything to make it more likely he's replaced.

I think this is definitely true, but that also didn't stop them for leaking internals for VA, MN, saying how weak he was even in blue states, etc. But maybe they've reconsidered after the debate.

[philly09]

https://twitter.com/notcapnamerica/status/1807537227968504264

[emailking]

Aren't those numbers kind of low for Biden among black voters? I don't know or recall if I saw a racial breakdown for a debate like that before but they seem low.

[KYRockefeller]

Aren't those numbers kind of low for Biden among black voters? I don't know or recall if I saw a racial breakdown for a debate like that before but they seem low.

Same.  25% of Black voters for Trump?  If that were replicated in the general in any way, Biden and Democrats are cooked.  That won't happen but even if it was 12.5% that'd be fatal.

[Tekken_Guy]

Aren't those numbers kind of low for Biden among black voters? I don't know or recall if I saw a racial breakdown for a debate like that before but they seem low.

Same.  25% of Black voters for Trump?  If that were replicated in the general in any way, Biden and Democrats are cooked.  That won't happen but even if it was 12.5% that'd be fatal.

I wonder if the debate turns that into actual reality at this point.

[Obama24]

Aren't those numbers kind of low for Biden among black voters? I don't know or recall if I saw a racial breakdown for a debate like that before but they seem low.

Same.  25% of Black voters for Trump?  If that were replicated in the general in any way, Biden and Democrats are cooked.  That won't happen but even if it was 12.5% that'd be fatal.

I wonder if the debate turns that into actual reality at this point.

This is why I've been saying if Trump wants to win, he needs to pick Scott. Scott would bring Black Americans into the fold and turn that 25% into a reality. He may not speak for all Black people, but neither does Kamala. Scott, after the debate, would probably be the best running mate choice.

[Phenix621]

Too many people on here and the punditry at large needs to take a couple Xanax and chill out.

Too late to replace Uncle Joe, the candidate they will likely select won't have time to make inroads to actually beat Trump. The best bets out there to replace him (Kamala, Gavin, Booker, Pete) don't play well culturally to the 5 states that really matter in this election cycle (Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, Arizona, Nevada).

Biden for all his faults, plays well with the WWC/union Joe's in PA, MI, WI. Kamala will lose all 3 and so will Gavin (Mr. California is not well liked outside of the progressive orbit). The more Biden talks, the more he seems lost, but the more Trump talks, the more unhinged AND lost he seems.

Ya'll said the same nonsense about Biden back in 2020, and look what happened. The man is a survivor and somehow pulls a victory of certain defeat.

It's going to be a 281-257 Biden map.

It's not. Biden proved everyone's worst fears. If he doesn't withdraw right now, then the Democrats are heading for an absolute landslide defeat.

The debate proved nothing. Everyone already knows Joe Biden is old and Donald Trump is a liar. It’s laughable that the democratic punditry wants to replace Joe Biden, who honestly outside of John Fetterman is the only one in the stable that can deliver the swing states. The liberals are delusional and out of touch with reality if they think someone like Kamala Harris or Gavin Newsom are going to play well in Wisconsin, in Michigan, Pennsylvania or Nevada.

Trump is equally flawed if not even more flawed than Biden. Did you not hear how he mucked up the question when it comes to abortion rights? Its the topic that’s becoming the 3rd rail of American Politics—if you limit suburban moms and/or their daughters from terminating an unwanted pregnancy, you’re making them vote of (D) no matter who they are or what they stand for.

Politics is local and issues that matter are kitchen table ones.

[cg41386]

Too many people on here and the punditry at large needs to take a couple Xanax and chill out.

Too late to replace Uncle Joe, the candidate they will likely select won't have time to make inroads to actually beat Trump. The best bets out there to replace him (Kamala, Gavin, Booker, Pete) don't play well culturally to the 5 states that really matter in this election cycle (Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, Arizona, Nevada).

Biden for all his faults, plays well with the WWC/union Joe's in PA, MI, WI. Kamala will lose all 3 and so will Gavin (Mr. California is not well liked outside of the progressive orbit). The more Biden talks, the more he seems lost, but the more Trump talks, the more unhinged AND lost he seems.

Ya'll said the same nonsense about Biden back in 2020, and look what happened. The man is a survivor and somehow pulls a victory of certain defeat.

It's going to be a 281-257 Biden map.

It's not. Biden proved everyone's worst fears. If he doesn't withdraw right now, then the Democrats are heading for an absolute landslide defeat.

We are way too polarized as a nation for a landslide defeat, unless your definition has a much lower threshhold.

[wbrocks67]

Aren't those numbers kind of low for Biden among black voters? I don't know or recall if I saw a racial breakdown for a debate like that before but they seem low.

I'd say it's more indicative of black voters being realistic and pragmatic about Biden having a bad night. Trump's #s aren't anything special either. A lot of 'both' or 'neither' in there

Kind of shows the point that admitting Biden had a rough night =/= no longer voting for Biden

[Green Line]

This is the biggest landslide in debate history. Bar none

Pepper!!!

You're back.  Who are you supporting now that Hillary is not a candidate?

[American2020]

Biden couldn’t fight history at the first debate

There’s one word that best describes Democrats’ reaction to President Joe Biden’s performance in Thursday’s debate: panic. His faltering appearance alongside former President Donald Trump has been enough to prompt calls for his swift exit from the race in favor of another candidate. It wasn’t ideal, to put it mildly — but looking back at recent history, Biden’s poor showing was hardly unprecedented.

https://www.msnbc.com/opinion/msnbc-opinion/biden-debate-trump-obama-clinton-rcna159511

[philly09]

Biden couldn’t fight history at the first debate

There’s one word that best describes Democrats’ reaction to President Joe Biden’s performance in Thursday’s debate: panic. His faltering appearance alongside former President Donald Trump has been enough to prompt calls for his swift exit from the race in favor of another candidate. It wasn’t ideal, to put it mildly — but looking back at recent history, Biden’s poor showing was hardly unprecedented.

https://www.msnbc.com/opinion/msnbc-opinion/biden-debate-trump-obama-clinton-rcna159511

All the more reason why Bill Clinton was a once in a lifetime politician. He had a stellar first debate against Dole. Say what you want about him, but he bucked the trend.

[Del Tachi]

https://twitter.com/PoliticusSarah/status/1807453559081873644

Backs up the notion that Biden's campaign"s polling is seeing different things than public polls.

Whether they're more accurate or not is impossible to tell until election day, unfortunately.

Or it's all bluster to justify keeping Biden in the race.

[Progressive Pessimist]

https://twitter.com/PoliticusSarah/status/1807453559081873644

Backs up the notion that Biden's campaign"s polling is seeing different things than public polls.

Whether they're more accurate or not is impossible to tell until election day, unfortunately.

Or it's all bluster to justify keeping Biden in the race.

Well yeah, given the poll from today that looks like the most logical possibility.

[KYRockefeller]

Biden couldn’t fight history at the first debate

There’s one word that best describes Democrats’ reaction to President Joe Biden’s performance in Thursday’s debate: panic. His faltering appearance alongside former President Donald Trump has been enough to prompt calls for his swift exit from the race in favor of another candidate. It wasn’t ideal, to put it mildly — but looking back at recent history, Biden’s poor showing was hardly unprecedented.

https://www.msnbc.com/opinion/msnbc-opinion/biden-debate-trump-obama-clinton-rcna159511

I really don't like these comparisons to other rough debates by incumbents, whether it be Reagan in '84, Bush in '04, or Obama in '12.  None of those guys looked as bad as Biden did throughout their debates.  Reagan was the closest parallel but questions about his fitness were not as loud as Biden's (and of course he recovered in debate #2 shortly thereafter which Biden can't do).  Bush and Obama just had bad nights, moreso Bush, but their mentall and physical fitness for the job was never in question.

[Pericles]

Biden couldn’t fight history at the first debate

There’s one word that best describes Democrats’ reaction to President Joe Biden’s performance in Thursday’s debate: panic. His faltering appearance alongside former President Donald Trump has been enough to prompt calls for his swift exit from the race in favor of another candidate. It wasn’t ideal, to put it mildly — but looking back at recent history, Biden’s poor showing was hardly unprecedented.

https://www.msnbc.com/opinion/msnbc-opinion/biden-debate-trump-obama-clinton-rcna159511

I really don't like these comparisons to other rough debates by incumbents, whether it be Reagan in '84, Bush in '04, or Obama in '12.  None of those guys looked as bad as Biden did throughout their debates.  Reagan was the closest parallel but questions about his fitness were not as loud as Biden's (and of course he recovered in debate #2 shortly thereafter which Biden can't do).  Bush and Obama just had bad nights, moreso Bush, but their mentall and physical fitness for the job was never in question.

It's a deeper negative perception yes. If 72% think your brain isn't strong enough to do the job, then that's so hard to come back from.

[junior chįmp]

Yawn. Many political science studies over the decades have concluded that debates dont matter. Not here or in other countries.

Presidential Debates Have Shockingly Little Effect on Election Outcomes

To cut through such noise, in 2019 Vincent Pons, an associate professor at Harvard Business School, and graduate student Caroline Le Pennec of the University of California, Berkeley, produced a working paper analyzing the influence of 56 TV debates on 31 elections in the U.S., the U.K., Germany, Canada and three other countries. The researchers’ data set included 94,000 respondents who were interviewed before and after an election to see who they planned to vote for and who they actually wound up choosing. The surveys took place in the two months leading up to an election, with a different set of individuals interviewed each day. This approach allowed the researchers to determine the percentage of people who had settled on their final choice as election day grew nearer and to test for any effect immediately before and after a debate.

Across all voting systems and election types, Pons and Le Pennec found that debates neither helped undecided voters to make up their mind nor caused those who had already made a decision to switch candidates. “I was surprised,” Pons says. “If you look at the numbers of people watching TV debates and at all the media attention around debates, you would think debates matter.”

Pons’s study is not the only one to conclude that debates do not, in fact, have an impact. Wlezien arrived at the same finding when he and Robert Erikson of Columbia University analyzed all available U.S. presidential election polls between 1952, when the first televised debate took place, and 2012. The best predictor for a candidate’s standing after a debate season, they found, is what it was before that person’s face-offs.

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/presidential-debates-have-shockingly-little-effect-on-election-outcomes/

NEXT

[Holy Unifying Centrist]

Yawn. Many political science studies over the decades have concluded that debates dont matter. Not here or in other countries.

Presidential Debates Have Shockingly Little Effect on Election Outcomes

To cut through such noise, in 2019 Vincent Pons, an associate professor at Harvard Business School, and graduate student Caroline Le Pennec of the University of California, Berkeley, produced a working paper analyzing the influence of 56 TV debates on 31 elections in the U.S., the U.K., Germany, Canada and three other countries. The researchers’ data set included 94,000 respondents who were interviewed before and after an election to see who they planned to vote for and who they actually wound up choosing. The surveys took place in the two months leading up to an election, with a different set of individuals interviewed each day. This approach allowed the researchers to determine the percentage of people who had settled on their final choice as election day grew nearer and to test for any effect immediately before and after a debate.

Across all voting systems and election types, Pons and Le Pennec found that debates neither helped undecided voters to make up their mind nor caused those who had already made a decision to switch candidates. “I was surprised,” Pons says. “If you look at the numbers of people watching TV debates and at all the media attention around debates, you would think debates matter.”

Pons’s study is not the only one to conclude that debates do not, in fact, have an impact. Wlezien arrived at the same finding when he and Robert Erikson of Columbia University analyzed all available U.S. presidential election polls between 1952, when the first televised debate took place, and 2012. The best predictor for a candidate’s standing after a debate season, they found, is what it was before that person’s face-offs.

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/presidential-debates-have-shockingly-little-effect-on-election-outcomes/

NEXT

Have they ever studied an 82 year old showing signs of dementia and senility for everyone to see?

This wasn't just a "bad night". This was an emperor has no clothes moment for the American people - especially dem partisans who kept lying to us that Biden was fine because he put a mediocre performance once.

[wbrocks67]

Yawn. Many political science studies over the decades have concluded that debates dont matter. Not here or in other countries.

Presidential Debates Have Shockingly Little Effect on Election Outcomes

To cut through such noise, in 2019 Vincent Pons, an associate professor at Harvard Business School, and graduate student Caroline Le Pennec of the University of California, Berkeley, produced a working paper analyzing the influence of 56 TV debates on 31 elections in the U.S., the U.K., Germany, Canada and three other countries. The researchers’ data set included 94,000 respondents who were interviewed before and after an election to see who they planned to vote for and who they actually wound up choosing. The surveys took place in the two months leading up to an election, with a different set of individuals interviewed each day. This approach allowed the researchers to determine the percentage of people who had settled on their final choice as election day grew nearer and to test for any effect immediately before and after a debate.

Across all voting systems and election types, Pons and Le Pennec found that debates neither helped undecided voters to make up their mind nor caused those who had already made a decision to switch candidates. “I was surprised,” Pons says. “If you look at the numbers of people watching TV debates and at all the media attention around debates, you would think debates matter.”

Pons’s study is not the only one to conclude that debates do not, in fact, have an impact. Wlezien arrived at the same finding when he and Robert Erikson of Columbia University analyzed all available U.S. presidential election polls between 1952, when the first televised debate took place, and 2012. The best predictor for a candidate’s standing after a debate season, they found, is what it was before that person’s face-offs.

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/presidential-debates-have-shockingly-little-effect-on-election-outcomes/

NEXT

Have they ever studied an 82 year old showing signs of dementia and senility for everyone to see?

This wasn't just a "bad night". This was an emperor has no clothes moment for the American people - especially dem partisans who kept lying to us that Biden was fine because he put a mediocre performance once.

Once again, you can be 81 years old and be slow but not have dementia and be senile. If you're going to jump to that instantly, you show you're working in bad faith.

[Holy Unifying Centrist]

Yawn. Many political science studies over the decades have concluded that debates dont matter. Not here or in other countries.

Presidential Debates Have Shockingly Little Effect on Election Outcomes

To cut through such noise, in 2019 Vincent Pons, an associate professor at Harvard Business School, and graduate student Caroline Le Pennec of the University of California, Berkeley, produced a working paper analyzing the influence of 56 TV debates on 31 elections in the U.S., the U.K., Germany, Canada and three other countries. The researchers’ data set included 94,000 respondents who were interviewed before and after an election to see who they planned to vote for and who they actually wound up choosing. The surveys took place in the two months leading up to an election, with a different set of individuals interviewed each day. This approach allowed the researchers to determine the percentage of people who had settled on their final choice as election day grew nearer and to test for any effect immediately before and after a debate.

Across all voting systems and election types, Pons and Le Pennec found that debates neither helped undecided voters to make up their mind nor caused those who had already made a decision to switch candidates. “I was surprised,” Pons says. “If you look at the numbers of people watching TV debates and at all the media attention around debates, you would think debates matter.”

Pons’s study is not the only one to conclude that debates do not, in fact, have an impact. Wlezien arrived at the same finding when he and Robert Erikson of Columbia University analyzed all available U.S. presidential election polls between 1952, when the first televised debate took place, and 2012. The best predictor for a candidate’s standing after a debate season, they found, is what it was before that person’s face-offs.

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/presidential-debates-have-shockingly-little-effect-on-election-outcomes/

NEXT

Have they ever studied an 82 year old showing signs of dementia and senility for everyone to see?

This wasn't just a "bad night". This was an emperor has no clothes moment for the American people - especially dem partisans who kept lying to us that Biden was fine because he put a mediocre performance once.

Once again, you can be 81 years old and be slow but not have dementia and be senile. If you're going to jump to that instantly, you show you're working in bad faith.

Joe Biden is senile and should resign for the safety of America. I would much rather have Kamala Harris as our commander in chief. We cannot trust Joe to help us at 2 AM if we get attacked.