I am hearing mostly rah-rahs for Harris. And the instant polls show Harris was perceived as the winner. But did she pick up votes? For how long?
The Debate She Wanted
Nate Silver thinks Kamala Harris Got the Debate She Wanted.
- There is a strong consensus that Harris won the night. Polymarket predicts there’s a 97 percent chance that Harris is judged the winner of debate in snap polls, and also has the overall race drawing to 50/50 after having shown a Trump lead at the start of the night. Bitcoin prices are down, which also implies a loss for Trump. Even the Fox News panel that I caught at the tail end of the evening seemed to concede that it was a win for Harris.
- Harris is a good tactician, and I imagine her campaign couldn’t have been more pleased with Trump repeatedly taking the bait literally every time that she offered it.
- Trump didn’t seem to know to do with the long 2-minute blocks and microphones muted. He’d have coherent and occasionally even fairly effective sections for 30 seconds at a time, but then he’d veer off into another direction. You’ll probably see some process stories complaining that Trump wasn’t well prepared for the evening.
- And Trump also was very much in “campaign rally” mode, speaking in terminology that was more coded toward the GOP base and name-dropping people like Sean Hannity and Laura Ingram.
- Lots of GOP complaining on Twitter about the biased moderation, which whether you agree or not, is almost always a bearish indicator.
- But to be fair, the set of questions was pretty friendly to Harris. Nothing about Biden’s fitness for office, for instance, even though his catastrophic failure in the first debate is the reason she rather than Biden was standing on stage tonight. And ABC News also doing basically real-time fact checking played well for Harris. Maybe some of the constant Democratic ref-working of the mainstream media played dividends.
- Trump was more effective on the economy than on other topics, sticking to simpler rhetoric that an economist might not approve of (e.g. on tariffs) but which will probably play reasonably well with the median undecided voter. I thought the first 10 minutes or so, focused on the economy, were actually pretty good for Trump — but there may be a fatigue issue, as there was with Biden. We didn’t see much “A-game” after that.
- Sustained debate early in the evening on abortion very bullish for Harris, both in terms of the substance and the subject matter — it’s probably Democrats’ best single topic. In particular, Trump couldn’t really land the point about the Supreme Court throwing it to the states as being a good thing. What happens in the first 15-30 minutes almost always matters disproportionately relative to the rest of the evening.
- Style-wise, Harris seemed quite canned at times, like in invoking Camp David.
There are seven more points which to be fair to Silver, I will leave to subscribers.
I missed the first three minutes and caught the rest.
What Caught My Attention
First, my perception is Harris looked like she had a phony smile most of the evening. Nate Silver called it “canned” but that is based on answers not expression. Canned is a good description from either perspective.
Trump has clearly been worse, much worse. In fact, I wonder if Trump has ever been better.
It’s not that Trump debated Biden well, it’s that Biden gave the worst debate performance in history.
Trump did wander off track, but less than I expected. But being better is not the same as winning.
Betting Odds Suggest Harris Won
If Trump was better than excepted, then so was Harris. Polymarket went from 53-47 Trump to 49-49.
If you think Trump won, you are probably showing more than a bit of bias. But even Silver admits “But to be fair, the set of questions was pretty friendly to Harris.”
Regardless, Trump should have been better prepared for the questions. Can anyone say any question was out of the blue unexpected?
Harris was prepared for the questions. Trump wasn’t. Harris practiced for the debates, Trump didn’t.
But Who Really Won?
I am having issues embedding Tweets so that is very preliminary. Here is a link.
https://x.com/MishGEA/status/1833706921771294984
I basically thought I don’t know. The Polymarket betting odds suggest Harris won.
If a week from now the polls look like they did yesterday, my answer is noboday.
But we do have moving odds for other reasons.
Giving a slight edge to Harris, for now, seems reasonable, based on betting odds. It’s tough to defend a strong belief that Trump won. But ask me in 10 days.
I suspect Harris did not move the needle three percentage points. Even if so, three points (net swing of 6) is not a disaster.
Trump needed to avoid a disaster, and he did. Does that constitute a win?
Economy Favors Trump
The economy favors Trump. I am sticking with that call until proven wrong.
September 9: Fed Beige Book Conditions Are Worse Now Than the Start of the Great Recession
September 10: NFIB “Mood on Main Street Darkens” Small Business Optimism Dips
September 10: The McKelvey Recession Indicator Triggered, But What Are the Odds?