It’s mostly now about the turnout game,
There are very few undecided voters left in the electorate at this point in the campaign. When those undecided voters say we need more substance from either of the candidates, it doesn’t necessarily mean that they don’t know the differences or that they’re really waiting for some key piece of information that will tip the scales. That’s ambivalence. It’s not ignorance about where the candidates stand,
Let’s make no mistake, Trump had a bad night,
Her campaign strategy in this debate was clearly to allow Trump to display this kind of intense anger and goad him into making highly questionable arguments that they would cause moderates, and maybe even some moderate Republicans, to either become disillusioned with Trump and stay home from voting,
The question is, how much does it move the electorate in Wisconsin? Our electorate is pretty highly polarised even by national standards and so moving it much seems a little far-fetched,
The fact that they are negative towards politics, though, also sounds like many of Trump’s supporters, and that is one argument to think that Trump might have an advantage winning over those folks who are undecided but very negative about politics,
Democrats are now running about nine points ahead of Republicans in enthusiasm, which certainly seems to point to another very high-turnout election,
I did great in the debates, and I think they've answered everything. But maybe if I got in the right mood, I don't know,
I wouldn't need anything. I could do it tomorrow,
Everything was crooked in the second one.”
Why hasn't she done it? She's been there for 3 1/2 years,
[Trump's] performance in the first one was a disaster, and I think even he knows that. If there was a second debate in which he was more disciplined, less unhinged, and more able to focus attention on the great murkiness surrounding Harris's plans for the future, why she's changed positions so dramatically from 2020, and why she wouldn't play to the more liberal wing of the party, it would help him,
The likelihood of having a second debate is very, very low here. It just doesn't seem like it's in the strategic interests of either candidate to have a second debate,
The ideal scenario could be that she calls for the debate and Trump doesn't do it. That's always been the best of all worlds. She can show that she's a confident debater and has no problem doing another one or so. It makes her look strong and presidential, where it goes against his mantra of strength,
There might be more effort by the moderators to get specific answers from her about her own policies, which have been lacking, and Trump would likely be better about pushing her on details,
[He ... He needs to] recognize the mistakes that he made in the first debate. Work on this mistakes, and then reengage in a way, and attack her in a way that allows the Americans to see her deficiencies,
We owe it to the voters. Because here’s the thing … in this election, what’s at stake could not be more important,
The debate was a mess for Trump, yes. But these answers are simply toxic. In almost any other circumstance, any one of these answers might drive days of a media crisis for the candidate. Taken together, they are an unmitigated disaster,
Frankly, it could have been done better.”
They’re eating the dogs, the people that came in, they’re eating the cats,