And yet his poll numbers aren't collapsing. Let's look at national polls taken since the debate: A Data for Progress survey now has Harris up by 4, but that's only one point better than her lead in the group's previous pre-debate poll. A survey from Redfield & Wilton Strategies has Harris leading by 2, unchanged from her lead in a poll conducted by the firm in late August. Reuters/Ipsos has Harris leading by 5 among registered voters -- which is good, but not much better than her 4-point lead in a late-August survey. Morning Consult gives Harris a 5-point lead, but it was 4 before the debate.
All of these are encouraging numbers, but Trump's support hasn't collapsed. Why is that?
The easy answer is that Trump's superfans will never abandon him. That's true, but he hasn't remained competitive in this election just because of the superfans. There aren't enough of them. He's remained competitive because people who don't worship the ground he walks on continue to support him. Paradoxically, they're as unlikely to reject him after that debate as the MAGA loyalists.
Here's the problem: Trump supporters who aren't superfans already seem to recognize that he's an obnoxious, angry blowhard. They've priced that in to their decision this year. Their view is that if he's elected president, he'll say a lot of awful things, and he'll post terrible things on social media, but he'll also make inflation go away magically. So it doesn't matter to them that he looked like an idiot on Tuesday night. They already thought he was an idiot -- but they think he's an idiot who can make prices lower using that business magic they saw him display on The Apprentice.
Take a look at the poll CNN conducted immediately after the debate. Debate watchers thought Harris did a better job by a 63%-37% margin, and had a 45% favorable view of Harris after the debate (44% unfavorable), while Trump's favorable/unfavorable numbers were 39%/51%. Yet 55% trust Trump more than Harris on the economy, "a margin that’s slightly wider than his pre-debate edge," according to CNN (35% trust Harris more).
Or look at the Data for Progress poll. In that survey, 56% of respondents said Harris performed better in the debate (37% chose Trump). When asked about Trump's pet-eating allegations, 80% of respondents said the remarks were either "very weird" (64%) or "somewhat weird" (16%). Even 69% of Republicans thought they were weird.
Yet Trump trails Harris in the poll by only 4 points, 50%-46%. Voters trust Trump more on inflation (though it's only 49%-44% in this survey). That plus a lead on immigration (50%-44%) seems to counter all this:
Voters believe Harris is more composed (+19), honest (+13), and intelligent (+8) than Trump. They also believe that Harris is the “candidate of the future” (+11), fights more for the working class (+10), and is more moderate (+17) than Trump. Conversely, voters believe Trump is weirder (+16) and more extreme (+24) than Harris.Here's a bonus fact that I hope the Harris campaign uses to needle Trump: 49% of voters think the word "insecure" applies to Trump, while only 39% think it applies to Harris. (I don't understand how Harris's number could be that high.)
So there are clearly voters who recognize Trump's character flaws and back him anyway.
I'm not pointing this out because I'm feeling the gloom and doom I was feeling when Joe Biden was still in the race. I think Harris is in pretty good shape, and is a slight favorite to win. I'm just trying to understand why the race is still close.
Maybe Trump will double down on rage, resentment, and Laura Loomer-style conspiratorialism, and his numbers will continue to erode. Or it might be that Harris has to challenge him more forcefully on the economy, because the gettable voters she needs are willing to vote for a guy who says immigrants eat pets if they think he can lower the price of eggs.
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