Third presidential debates usually don’t matter. And there’s a reason. The candidate who’s behind tries to avoid mistakes made in the earlier debates and sound more clear-minded and knowledgeable. The candidate who’s ahead simply plays it safe.
The result is a debate unlikely to change the fundamentals of a campaign. And that was the case Wednesday night. It was Donald Trump’s best debate and Hillary Clinton’s worst. But it’s doubtful Trump’s performance did more than keep him from falling further behind.
That’s not nothing. It means Trump has a faint chance of closing the six-percentage-point gap (in the Fox News poll) between himself and Clinton. No candidate has come from that far behind with less than three weeks to go in a presidential race and won. Hubert Humphrey in 1968 and Gerald Ford in 1976 closed fast but lost.
If Trump managed to put a floor under his two-week decline, that could have an important impact on Senate and House races. Republicans worry that a Clinton landslide—beating Trump by 10 points or more—could result in losing the Senate and putting control of the House in jeopardy.
Did Trump toss away a victory in the debate by refusing to pledge he would accept the result of the voting on November? Not really. But it played into the hands of an unfriendly media that leaped to the conclusion he had made a whopping mistake.
The problem here for Trump is that media coverage often shapes public opinion on how a candidate fared in a debate. Viewers have to decide whether to believe the media or their own eyes. And more often than not, the media wins.
Trump had strong moments and at least in the first 30 minutes he didn’t interrupt Clinton. This was a marked improvement from his behavior in the earlier debates. But his self-control wavered later and he began to break in while she was talking. That was rude, and he gained nothing from his intrusions.
Clinton proved to be the master of boilerplate. When moderator Chris Wallace asked a tough question—such as one on the Clinton Foundation—she changed the subject and droned on until Wallace stopped her. Hearing her elaborate on the supposed successes of the foundation was mind-numbing. But it worked. It kept her of trouble.
Trump nailed her on the little-known fact that the immigration bill she supported included a wall along the border with Mexico. She looked distressed for a moment, then turned to her default tactic: meaningless discussion of something or other. Trump won the segment on immigration.
Despite providing more facts and details than in the other debates, Trump still failed to drive home why his economic plan is superior to Clinton’s. Her claim that his would cause a recession and massive job loss was preposterous.
Wallace mentioned that her plan was much like President Obama’s stimulus package passed in early 2009. It relied on government spending to lift the economy. But the Great Recession ended in June 2009 before most of the stimulus was actually spent. And a weak recovery has lingered since then.
Trump’s plan had antecedents that he didn’t mention Wednesday night or in the first two debates. President Kennedy’s cuts in individual and business tax rates created a boom in the 1960s, as did President Reagan’s in the 1980s. Why didn’t Trump make this point? We may never know.
