Scott Gurvey's Public Offerings

There is no sugar-coating it. President Joe Biden had a train wreck in his first 2024 debate with Former President Donald Trump. Fifty-one million watched. I wrote that I had concerns because Biden had seemed physically feeble during some appearances in the last year. Right as he walked out on the debate stage, I saw those signs, Biden walking slowly and speaking slowly and in a soft scratchy voice. I did not expect to see him ramble and become incoherent, but he did that more than once. At other times he was clear, combative, and effective, defending his administration and listing his accomplishments. But you could not fail to notice the other moments.

Biden’s performance sent supporters into apoplexy. In the spin room and among the MSNBC crowd we heard that Biden had a cold. It was also noted that Former President Barach Obama had a rocky first debate of the 2012 cycle against then-Republican nominee Mitt Romney. Still there are many calling for Biden to withdraw from the race, something he said he will not do as he gave a fiery speech at a rally the day after in which he acknowledged his poor debate performance, speaking in a much stronger voice.

And about Trump

Not joining in with the calls for Biden to drop out was Trump, apparently happy to let the Democrats stew. Trump’s performance in the debate was typical Trump, all form and no substance. While Trump may have been of strong voice and showed no lack of energy, he almost never answered the moderator’s questions, replies consisting of an endless stream of lies.

Trump lied about abortion, lied about the economy, lied about the pandemic, lied about the January 6, 2021, insurrection, and attack on the Capitol, lied about Afghanistan, lied about the military, lied about drug prices, lied about NATO, and on and on and on. The debate sponsor CNN promised the moderators would not fact-check the candidates during the live event. But CNN investigated Trump’s lies later and concluded Trump made more than thirty false claims, far more than Biden. The Washington Post came to a similar conclusion.

Refusing to answer the question and then barraging your opponent with a stream of outrageous lies is a well-known debate strategy called, I kid you not, “Gish Galloping“. Mehdi Hasan, an expert on debating, describes this in an article he authored for The Atlantic in 2023 titled, “How to Beat Trump in a Debate“. I don’t know what Biden and his campaign staff were doing at Camp David for the week he was supposed to be on “debate prep”. But they certainly weren’t reading Hasan’s article. Nor were they protecting Biden’s health to keep him from catching a cold.

What’s Next?

As a matter of law and party rules both Trump and Biden have won enough delegate votes in primary elections to win their party’s nomination. That means if Biden is to be off the ticket, he would have to make that decision. And then what? An open convention without the benefit of a long primary process to vet Democratic candidates? None of this seems likely despite the calls of some newspaper columnists and editorial boards.

As of this writing we don’t have any good survey data on what the voter reaction is to this debate. It is still not likely the debate flipped any voters who were strongly Republican or Democratic. It is only the “swingable” votes in the key swing states that we are interested in. It is still a long way to go until the election in November. There will be plenty of advertising. There will be speeches and programs at the two national nominating conventions. There is a second debate scheduled for September. And so, as the cliche goes, the outcome of the election “remains to be seen”.

Still there is no doubt President Biden lost the first debate. Trump “won” the debate only for those who pay attention just to the performance, the form, and not the substance. This whole campaign already has, in my humble opinion, one clear loser. The American people.

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