Kamala Harris to debate Donald Trump: NAJ screen shot

The Big Picture –
By Glynn Wilson –

Rarely in American political history has a moment been as charged with salience and import as the so-called “debate” that is to take place in Philadelphia Tuesday night on ABC between Democrat Kamala Harris and Donald Trump.

On the face of it, Harris should have the clear advantage as an experienced former prosecutor and Senator, if this was an actual debate about policy and facts. The question is, can she rise to the moment and handle the pressure of facing off against a master of avoiding taking clear positions on policy and obliterating the facts?

The press and media in this country all say Joe Biden lost his debate with Trump in June on CNN in Atlanta, not because he was wrong on policy or the facts. It was the impression that he was struggling to try to deal with Trump’s lies by citing facts, and looked old and feeble in doing it.

I was watching all this go down right down the street from Camp David, in the same mountain woods where Biden and his team conducted their preparations for the debate. Of course it was not really a debate at all.

As I wrote at the time, Biden and his team should have realized that you can’t debate Trump on policy and the facts. Biden might have come out ahead in that contest had he simply focused on being relaxed while Trump went off on his crazy rants, and just made funny quips about Trump not having a clue what he was talking about. Instead because of all the debate prep trying to get Biden ready to cite the facts about the economy, foreign policy and the Supreme Court and such, Biden struggled to recall his own State of the Union address, basically, while Trump attacked and dodged.

It is being reported that Harris spent most of the past four days ensconced in Pittsburgh’s Omni William Penn Hotel for an intensive “debate camp.” Her aides created a mock setup to mimic the layout of the debate studio, cast a veteran Donald Trump stand-in to unleash harsh attacks and offensive comments and put the vice president through hours of rehearsed questions.

I hope she didn’t over prepare for the debate as Biden seems to have done back in June at Camp David. She must remember that with Trump, facts and policy don’t matter. It’s all about the impression of being an impressive celebrity on reality television. In effect, every appearance Trump makes is more like fake “reality TV” than reality public affairs and politics. He clearly has no working understanding of how the government works, how the legal system works, how the economy works.

But he can pretend to be a master of all those things on reality TV. And his base of supporters don’t seem to care whether the government works at all anyway. They don’t expect anything from the government. They don’t like “gov’mn’t.”

Where Voters Stand

National Public Radio ran a story about a new poll this week saying 70 percent of Americans are preparing to watch the show in Philly, and 30 percent saying it could help them decide how to vote.

Before we get to the details of this survey, however, let me point out that this story contains elements of “sane washing” Trump, as MSNBC’s Lawrence O’Donnell pointed out about coverage of Trump by The New York Times this week.

See the story for yourself, if you can get past the Paywall: NYT: As Debate Looms, Trump Is Now the One Facing Questions About Age and Capacity

The NPR story is free online.

The public radio news network, which technically is supposed to be “educational” but has slipped into a more mainstream media “fair and balanced” model in recent years due to having to turn for revenue to big donors like the Koch brothers, ledes with this.

“Trump continues to have the upper hand on many of the fundamentals in this election — he’s TRUSTED more on the economy, immigration and how to handle the Middle East. And people who want a strong leader prefer him by a wide margin. Because of those advantages, a generic Republican might be able to swing the election in his or her favor. Instead, the race remains a coin flip, with Trump being such a polarizing figure.”

First of all, there’s no evidence that Trump has the “upper hand.” This race is still technically too close to call, and the polls actually show the electorate trending in her favor, even in the battleground states.

NAJ: Two Months to Go Until Nov. 5: Will American Democracy Survive?

And there’s no evidence that voters TRUST Trump at all. They may like him more on the issues they care about. The questions asked don’t mention TRUST.

“Who do you think would better handle ___ as president? Abortion, Immigration, Middle East, Economy.”

They do report that Harris is slightly better liked, is seen as “caring more about people like you,” and is viewed as the candidate who most represents change, which is in contrast with a recent New York Times poll, and she leads by a lot among those who say they want a leader who is “honest and trustworthy.”

That’s great, and seems to indicate that Harris has the “upper hand,” not Trump.

She also has a more significant advantage on “abortion rights” than Trump has on the other issues asked about. I’m not sure abortion rights is even a policy issue, but I guess it’s easier to understand than “reproductive freedom,” which is actually what is at stake.

Harris has her own “vulnerabilities,” according to NPR, particularly that more people see her as “too liberal” than see Trump as “too conservative,” including 50 percent of independents.

“That’s despite the fact that she has tried to tack to the middle on a host of issues, including immigration, foreign policy and fracking, trying to win over those moderate voters in the crucial swing states,” NPR reports.

“She’ll likely be pushed on those issues in this debate because when she ran for president in 2019, she staked out more liberal positions in a Democratic primary. Harris would say she has traveled the country, learned more and evolved on some issues since then as vice president. But it will be up to her to make the case for herself in this debate.”

It all underscores the importance of the debate, according to NPR’s analysis, which carries risks for both candidates in front of what is likely to be one of, if not the, largest television audience of the presidential campaign…

Definitely Voting

The NPR survey also found an overwhelming majority, 82 percent, of respondents saying they are “definitely voting” in this election. Harris supporters are more likely to say this, 85 percent, while only 77 percent of independents say they are definitely voting. Again, advantage Harris.

Only 65 percent of respondents under 35 said they were definitely voting, however, although in other surveys, Harris has the clear advantage with younger voters.

Race, Gender and Education

Black and Latino voters lag behind as well in their enthusiasm for voting, with only 73 percent of African Americans and 77 percent of Latinos saying they will definitely vote.

Harris holds a 50-point advantage over Trump with Black voters, and she’s leading by 20 points with college-educated white voters. And they are among the most likely to vote, with 94 percent saying they are definitely voting. Harris does exceptionally well with college-educated white women, and with college-educated white men.

Trump won the men by 3 points in 2020, but Harris leads by 10 with those men in this latest survey.

Harris leads with women by 15 points, while Trump leads with men overall by 12, including Black and Latino men.

White voters without college degrees are one of Trump’s strongest core groups, they are about 10 points less likely to say they’ll definitely vote, which should be an advantage for Harris when it comes to voter turnout on Election Day.

Overall, 49 percent of respondents to this survey say they will vote for Harris, while 48 percent said say they are leaning toward Trump. Still too close to call.

Women traditionally make up a slightly larger percentage of the electorate. Biden lost men in 2020, but only by 8 points, so Harris likely needs to do marginally better with men, and this survey shows she is doing that.

Swing Voters in Swing States

Latino voters are crucial in the southwest swing states of Arizona and Nevada. Trump leads in the survey with the group, 51 percent to 47 percent, but Harris led by 16 points with the group last month. (It’s important to note that subgroups in national polling have very high margins of error. For Latinos in this survey, it’s plus or minus 8.2 percentage points, meaning results could be 8 points higher or lower, a range of 16 points).

Overall Favorability

Overall, 47 of respondents have a positive view of Harris, with 46 percent reporting a negative view.

For Trump, on the other hand, 45 percent have a favorable impression while 50 percent of the people view him unfavorably. Again, advantage Harris.

VP Picks

Between the vice-presidential running mates, Democrat Tim Walz is +4 in his favorability rating, 40 percent positive to 36 percent negative. Republican JD Vance continues to be underwater by 10 points, seen as unfavorable by 44 percent and only favorable by 34 percent.

Methodology

The survey was conducted Sept. 3 though 5. Marist interviewed 1,529 U.S. adults via cellphone, landline and online research panels in English and in Spanish. Overall the survey has a margin of error of plus or minus 3.2 percentage points, meaning results could be roughly 3 points higher or lower.

About the Author

Glynn Wilson is an expert on public opinion as an academic researcher and a journalist. He minored in Political Science with a major in Journalism and Communications at the University of Alabama in an undergraduate BA program back in the early 1980s, where he took every class offered related to this specialty. He also spent some time working with the Capstone Poll in those days, run by Political Science Professor Pat Cotter, and journalism professor Jim Stovall. He covered public opinion for newspapers and the UPI wire service after that for 10 years as part of the beat of covering public affairs and politics, including elections. He then went back to grad school at UA in the mid-1990s. One of his graduate research jobs was to oversee the public opinion lab in the College of Communications, also under the leadership of Stovall and Cotter, who conducted most of the political election polls in Alabama for a couple of decades. Wilson’s academic research specialty was in the area of media effects on public opinion. He later worked toward a Ph.D. in this research, but rather than continue teaching and jump through the final hoop of defending a dissertation at the University of Tennessee, he opted to go back into the news business working for The Dallas Morning News, The New York Times and other publications. He went independent on the web in 2005 in the early blogging era when newspapers were experiencing financial troubles, and has covered public opinion ever since as one of his many specialty beats.

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