One of the theories I have about 2016 is that because the two most unpopular candidates in American history are running, the race tilts away from the candidate that has the country’s attention. When Hillary Clinton is front-and-center, as she’s been for the last few weeks, she’s losing. Ditto for Donald Trump. (See August.)
The debate on Monday night was largely about Trump, and it seems pretty reasonable to suspect that he came out on the short end because of it.
Trump had a good first 15 minutes. What was good about it? He was the calm, low-key beta Trump we saw once or twice during the primary debates, looking more like the guy who went down to meet with Mexico’s president than the guy who stood onstage with Marco Rubio and boasted about his junk. That was pretty good.
But what was really good was for those 15 minutes, Trump focused relentlessly on the idea that Clinton represented the same politics of the last 30 years. He pushed the idea that he represents change, but even that notion was second to the pitch of Clinton being a dinosaur from a not-especially-good era in American history.
Clinton, however, managed to derail Trump. It wasn’t a sophisticated stratagem: Trump was asked about releasing his taxes and Clinton used the opportunity to suggest that Trump may be influenced by foreign powers, may not pay any income tax, and may not actually give much to charity. Those criticisms were for the benefit of the audience. She also suggested that Trump’s tax returns would reveal that the man isn’t as rich as he says he is and carries large amounts of debt.
If you’ve spent even an afternoon studying up on Trump, you understand that this set play was designed to provoke Trump on the issue about which he’s most sensitive. He took the bait. And for the rest of the night, Trump reverted to his Trumpness, putting on display the same candidate who bulled his way through the Republican primary debates. Which is to say: It was all about him. He was constantly on the defensive, trying to excuse his behavior, his past views, and his business practices.
When he tried to prosecute his case against Clinton, he was reduced to incoherence. He told her, “You’ve been fighting ISIS for your entire adult life.” He insisted that something—the stock market? the entire American economy?—was “in a bubble.”
“Believe me: We’re in a bubble right now,” he said. “And the only thing that looks good is the stock market, but if you raise interest rates even a little bit, that’s going to come crashing down. We are in a big, fat, ugly bubble. And we better be awfully careful.”
Trump spent large chunks of time defending himself from being sued by the Department of Justice for housing discrimination, with his defense being that “I settled that lawsuit with no admission of guilt.” He was so pleased with this argument that he made it twice. When the subject of his years-long assertion that President Obama was not a natural-born citizen came up, instead of having a set answer to the completely predictable question, he tied himself in knots.
Trump was so relentlessly the focus that when the Iraq war came up, he managed to hijack the entire discussion so that it revolved around whether or not he had supported the war. This was a losing position on two different levels: One, he sucked up so much time that Clinton was given a complete pass on her own support of the war, and, two, he managed to layer on questions about his trustworthiness on top of a question about his judgment.
In every single major exchange after the 15-minute mark, Trump was the main object of discussion. And on every single exchange, he was on the defensive. He lost.
Was it a stamina problem? Choking? Who knows. (I suspect it’s a focus problem.) The question is, does this loss really mean anything?
I’m inclined to think it does not. If you were favorable to Trump going into the debate, you probably did not see anything from him to change your mind. If you’ve made your peace with Trumpism, then you’ve made your peace with Trumpism. It is difficult to imagine Trump losing many voters as a result of the evening.
On the other hand, remaining at status quo isn’t good enough for Trump. Since May he has lived almost exclusively between 40 percent and 42 percent support in national polling. Only once, for a brief moment after his convention, when all the stars aligned, did he break the 45 percent mark—and only for an instant. Even in a four-way race, 42 percent will not be enough to win. Trump has to find his way to 46 percent or 47 percent to have even a chance of victory.
The more people see of the 2016 candidates, the less they like them. And on Monday night, voters saw a whole lot of Trump.
