Let’s get this out of the way up top: This was, by far, Trump’s most disciplined debate performance. For 32 minutes, he almost sounded like a normal presidential candidate and for the first hour he wasn’t terrible. Trump even seems to have spent some time preparing. He knew the name of a Supreme Court case and was able to name a living Supreme Court justice which is, by far, the best command of judicial issues he’s shown in any of the debates.
Yet when the night broke bad for Trump, it became a cataclysm. Third debates typically don’t matter and Trump was already nearing the theoretical floor of 40 percent for a major party candidate. But his performance Wednesday night may test both of those propositions.
Consider the insanity of a presidential candidate accused of sexual assault defending himself by saying, “I haven’t even apologized to my wife.” Now maybe Trump has nothing to apologize for. But even if that’s the case, he is desperate to peel off college-educated women, who have been loath to support him. This comment is not the way to earn one last look from those voters.
Hillary Clinton (who also had her strongest performance, by far) prosecuted the case against Trump on sexual assault (and later on character) in utterly brutal fashion. She was slow, methodical, and thorough. Which is probably why, in a moment of impulsiveness, Trump interrupted her and muttered “Such a nasty woman.” It’s almost as though he wants to see if he can lose women voters by 40 points.
“Such a nasty woman” is destined to be played over and over again in the coming days. It’s the kind of undisciplined error that could cost a campaign a close race.
Yet “such a nasty woman” was only Trump’s second most-disastrous moment of the night. The worst came during the utterly predictable question on whether or not Trump believes the election is being “rigged” against him. Here’s the exchange that is going to dominate the news until Election Day:
This is the story of the debate. It’s a position that every down-ballot Republican is going to have to answer for. And it creates enormous problems for the RNC: If the election is rigged, then will Republican candidates who win by running ahead of Trump be illegitimately elected, too?
There will be a temptation among Republicans to try to downplay this moment with a tu quoque defense, reminding people that Democrats have been questioning the legitimacy of presidential elections since the hanging chad. (DIEBOLD, anyone?)
But this is a false equivalency. While Democratic (and Republican) functionaries and low-level officeholders have dabbled in electoral illegitimacy in the past, no presidential candidate has raised the possibility himself. And context matters: Trump is questioning the election results a month before the vote and doing so while losing by a large margin. This is a big deal. And to make it even bigger, Trump didn’t just question the legitimacy of the outcome but also the peaceful transition of power, which he specifically refused to endorse. “I’ll keep you in suspense” about whether or not Trump will accede to the peaceful transfer of power in the case of defeat? This is not business as usual. It is a difference of kind, not degree.
The outcome of this election is not in doubt. Barring the appearance of a kaiju off the Eastern seaboard, Hillary Clinton is going to be our next president. The only uncertainty is the size of her victory. If Trump recovers his standing in the polls and can manage to lose by only 4 percentage points, he could hold her to 293 electoral votes. That is her floor, and the best-case scenario for Republicans. If her numbers hold where they are now, the margin will be much larger.
But if the questions spinning outward from this debate resonate, we may see exactly how little support a major party candidate can muster through the force of sheer partisanship. It is not inconceivable that Trump could finish with 38 percent and that Clinton could win a 385 electoral-vote landslide.
