As Donald Trump continues to spread the idea that he emerged the big winner in Tuesday night’s presidential debate against Kamala Harris, a growing number of Republicans, including several of his allies, give the impression that they witnessed a completely different spectacle. And they are not afraid to make it known by publicly deploring a disastrous performance by the populist on screen, which could have dire consequences for the November election.
“He’s going to lose because of that debate performance,” prominent Republican pollster Frank Luntz predicted in a YouTube interview with Piers Morgan on Wednesday. “It was pretty negative, pretty pessimistic, cynical and dismissive, and I think it’s going to cost him.”
“It wasn’t the worst debate performance I’ve seen in my career, but it was very close,” added this strong and respected figure in the measurement of opinion in the American conservative ranks.
On Tuesday in Philadelphia, the Republican candidate was clearly unable to resist the many provocations of Kamala Harris, who for nearly 105 minutes of a decisive face-off in this campaign tried to make him lose his cool, by pressing where it hurts. She mentioned mockery made by heads of state towards him, pointed out that people leave his political rallies before the end, recalled his impeachments and his recent criminal conviction…
The result? Showing himself repeatedly irritated, Donald Trump lost himself in a series of comments exposing a delusional vision of the world. In addition to his usual lies about electoral fraud that never existed, he became the mouthpiece of a highly racist rumor claiming that immigrants from a small town in Ohio were eating the dogs and cats of local residents. The town said there were no reports or facts to support the odious claim. He reiterated his accusations against Democrats, who would allow, according to him, “abortions in the ninth month of pregnancy” or authorize sex change operations on illegal immigrants in prison, enormities propagated on social networks favoring radicalization through disinformation.
“We missed a lot of opportunities” to deliver the Republican message to voters, North Carolina Sen. Thom Tillis was quoted as saying by the political daily The Hill. “If you don’t listen to the advice of people who specialize in strategic communication […] you’re probably going to be venturing into dangerous waters,” he added.
Close to Donald Trump, South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham, who in recent years has regularly defended the former president, described the Republican’s performance in the debate as a “disaster”, saying in passing that the populist was not well prepared and that the team responsible for supervising him for this meeting should be fired, reported journalist Tim Miller, from the conservative political news site The Bulwark.
“I don’t think it was his best night,” said Alaska Senator Lisa Murkowski, who said a few days ago that she would not vote for Donald Trump.
Even Donald Trump’s new ally in the race for the White House, independent candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr., said Tuesday’s debate would lead to a “drop in support” among independent voters. “He got sidetracked, and that’s sad,” the Kennedy black sheep said on Fox News Wednesday. “He had a lot of strong arguments for his candidacy, but he wasn’t able to make them work for the American public.”
Trump annoyed
The Republican candidate, who since Tuesday has been claiming that he delivered the best debate of “all time,” seems irritated by this wave of criticism. On Thursday, he attacked Fox News host Neil Cavuto, who the day before claimed that Donald Trump had “without a shadow of a doubt” lost the debate. “It was scattered. For the first time, we were not faced with a close choice, but an unbalanced choice,” said this respected figure of the ultraconservative news network, which has contributed in recent years to the rise of Trumpism. For the former president, Cavuto has now become “the worst presenter on Fox and one of the worst on television,” he proclaimed on his social network.
On Thursday, an Ipsos-Reuters poll conducted after the presidential debate showed that Harris continued to widen her lead over the Republican, with her now holding 47 percent of the vote nationwide. That’s a five-point lead over Trump.
53% of those surveyed who watched the debate believe that the Democrat won the contest, compared to 24% who believe that it was Donald Trump.
Tuesday’s debate was watched by 67.1 million viewers, according to Nielsen data released Wednesday, 16 million more than the head-to-head matchup between Trump and Joe Biden last June.
On Thursday, the vice president added one more Republican voice to the chorus of more than 200 conservative public figures and former Trump staffers who have lined up behind her candidacy since midsummer. In a column, former U.S. attorney general under George W. Bush, Alberto Gonzales, pledged to vote for her, saying he could not “sit idly by while Donald Trump — perhaps the most serious threat to the rule of law in a generation — contemplates a return to the White House.”