Worst Presidential Debate Ever By Michael Barone
"Chaos." "Painful." "Dispiriting." "The worst presidential debate in American history." "The lowest point in American political culture in my lifetime."
"Chaos." "Painful." "Dispiriting." "The worst presidential debate in American history." "The lowest point in American political culture in my lifetime."
In their first debate, the president of the United States, challenged by the former vice president, performed poorly -- even by his own estimation.
Presidential debate number one was a slugfest, with President Trump coming out swinging. Poor Joe Biden didn’t know what hit him. He has granted few interviews during the campaign season, with scripted questions and answers on a teleprompter but no body slams from the likes of Trump the Barbarian.
Challenger edges over 270; rating changes for Senate, House.
— With the first debate now in the books, we have close to 20 rating changes across the Electoral College, Senate, and House.
— Joe Biden is now over 270 electoral votes in our ratings as we move several Midwestern states in his favor.
— Changes in the battle for Congress benefit Democrats almost exclusively. We’re moving two Senate races in their direction, as well as several House contests.
Last week, while on a business trip in Wisconsin, I learned about an insane ballot harvesting scheme that appears to be tied to a deep-pocketed liberal advocacy group subsidized by Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, Google, the Rockefeller Brothers Fund and eBay former chairman Pierre Omidyar's Democracy Fund.
"A pioneer devoted to equality."
That was The Washington Post's headline about Ruth Bader Ginsburg.
— There is a strong relationship between the 2020 presidential polls in the states and the 2016 results.
— This relationship makes sense given that there is an incumbent on the ballot. In these kinds of elections, we see a very high degree of consistency in the results at the state level.
— There are enough competitive states for Donald Trump to come back and win, but Joe Biden is considerably closer to the magic number of 270 than Trump, based on the polls.
In the second half of the 20th century, from 1950 to 2000, Black people in the United States experienced much larger income gains than whites did. The group that had the largest income gains, by far, was Black women. Their incomes nearly doubled over that period (after inflation). The race gap persists, but it is much lower today than it was in 1950. Does this sound like the financial result from a systemically racist country?
By nominating Federal Judge Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court, Donald Trump kept his word, and more than that.
More than 80 million Americans are expected to cast mail-in ballots this fall, representing a 16-fold increase over mail-in ballots in the 2016 election.
This is probably going to cause a constitutional crisis of epic proportions.
Norms, we are told, matter. Violating norms, recklessly disregarding norms -- these are charges on which President Donald Trump is often arraigned in the court of public opinion.
"As everyone knows, I made it clear that my first choice for the Supreme Court will make history as the first African American woman justice."
After Trump maxed out the Buckeye State’s rural areas and small town areas, can Biden max out the suburbs?
— Ohio insiders believe that the state is closer than last time, and that Donald Trump is struggling mightily in suburban areas.
— Still, Ohio should vote considerably to the right of the nation, thanks to its high percentage of white voters who don’t have a four-year college degree — a strong group for Trump — and its smaller-than-average nonwhite population, a group that is very Democratic.
— Suburban areas in general, and the Cincinnati and Dayton areas in particular, would likely be a key part of a Biden path to victory. But Trump is still better-positioned to win the state.
Wake up. The "community organizers" of the left are in full wildebeest mode. Now is not the time for bending down, rolling over or playing nice. From now until Election Day (and likely until the end of the year), you can expect screaming banshees carrying identical, preprinted signs to turn up in the middle of the night at the private homes of elected politicians, Donald Trump campaign and administration officials, law enforcement officers, judges and conservative leaders.
"Mother Earth is angry!" says Nancy Pelosi in my newest video.
"The debate is over around climate change!" says California Governor Gavin Newsom, smirking, strangely.
The Democrats are rewriting history, celebrating the Obama record on the economy as if these were the salad days for America. In Washington parlance, that is called "misremembering." The reality is that the Obama tax-and-regulate agenda led to the weakest economic recovery from a recession since the Great Depression.
President Donald Trump and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell are on the cusp of making history.
It would be a stretch to say that Joe Biden is in trouble. He is ahead in the polls, including in states where Donald Trump won last time. Unlike Trump, whose campaign is apparently nearly broke, Biden's campaign is raking in corporate donations.
Labor Day is in the rear-view mirror meaning that the presidential campaign is in full swing. With less than two months until the big day, the electoral winds appear to be blowing in President Trump’s direction.
What happens if, as seems much more likely now than it did a year or six months ago, Democrats overturn the Republican majority in the Senate?