One of the things I’ll be looking for tonight at this debate is which voters each candidate goes out of their way to address directly.
Every campaign has a theory about what coalition of voters they need to win. What’s striking is how both campaigns have the same challenges but, so far, appear to be going about their challenges differently.
Take the small slice of voters who truly are vacillating between the two candidates. These voters are MOSTLY moderates but not totally. Some are conservative Republicans who simply can’t support Trump due to character issues — the Cheneys are the avatar of this group. Others are very progressive folks who don’t trust either party (Cornell West is trying to appeal to these people) and still others fall into the libertarian column, who may lean right in theory but worry that both parties want to grow government too much and that the Republicans are bit too involved in the country’s personal life. And, yes, still many truly are centrists and simply looking for reassurance that the most extreme forces of both parties will NOT have too much influence.
Harris has been targeting these voters more on tone than on substance. She’s simply trying to paint herself in the broad mainstream of politics, using the “turn the page” motto as a way to appeal to both the left-leaning progressives and the disaffected Cheney Republicans.
The Trump folks have been going after undecided voters differently. They are no longer trying to win these folks over as “pro-Trump.” Instead, their theory is to find more MAGA-inclined supporters from voting groups who normally don’t turn out (think younger single working-class men) and then do what they can to disqualify Harris with this center-left and center-right voters, perhaps simply convincing them to vote third party or skip the presidential. They simply want to deny Harris these voters, even as they don’t fully attempt to win them over as Trump voters.
Trump’s entire campaign strategy has been trying to make 48% a winning number and that only happens if he can deny Harris the support of what we used to refer to as the “double hater” voter, named after voters who held unfavorable views of BOTH Trump and Biden.
For me, the candidate that is most effective in moving these disgruntled voters in one direction or the other will be who I consider “the winner” of this debate. Ultimately, a debate is won or lost based on whether voters shift, not based on what an individual pundit, partisan or columnist thinks. The way to know whether either has a successful night with this crucial group of voters: look at Harris’ personal rating; do her unfavorables grow or stay the same or shrink? If they grow, it likely means Harris didn’t do enough (or Trump did enough) to convince the skeptical moderates that she isn’t as progressive as Trump is trying to paint her. If her numbers don’t move much or even slightly improve, it likely means she made progress convincing these voters she’s a safer risk than Trump.
One more thing to look for, will either candidate admit a mistake. After all, voters fired Trump in 2020 because they thought his first term was a failure. Now, Trump is trying to convince folks that Biden was worse and that in hindsight, his term wasn’t so bad. But normally, a candidate who tries to win an election after losing, does some mea culpa. Trump and mea culpas go together about as well as a mustard and jelly sandwich. But that doesn’t mean he shouldn’t try. As for Harris, the voters decided earlier this year that Biden’s term hasn’t been a success. Obviously, she can’t accept the premise his term was a failure, but she can admit that they got some things wrong and that she’s learned some lessons from it. Does she do this? If so, how will she do it? Does she subtly separate herself from Biden, or do it a bit more dramatically?
I’m skeptical either will admit any mistake about their time in power, but I do think if one of them did, it could do wonders for them with those former double-hater voters.
