Biden vs. Trump: Risks and opportunities in the first debate

When President Joe Biden meets former President Donald Trump on the debate stage for the first time in 2024, both men will be seeking a breakthrough in a race that has been deadlocked for months.

Given a choice of two extremely familiar and broadly unpopular candidates who have recently served as president, those in the electorate appear to be entrenched in their views. The possibility exists that under these circumstances, and nearly a quarter-century into a period of intense political polarization, the presidential contest will prove impervious to the dynamics of a normal campaign.

Biden has poured millions of dollars into campaign ads hitting Trump in the battleground states and the poll numbers have barely budged. Trump was knocked off the campaign trail four days a week for a New York hush money trial that resulted in felony convictions with little movement in his support. Can the debates do anything to end the stalemate?

The stakes are arguably higher for Biden. The 81-year-old incumbent, who is asking for the opportunity to remain in the White House and in possession of the nuclear launch codes past his 86th birthday, is facing a fresh round of questions about his age. Alleviating those concerns and gaining separation from the Republican rival he increasingly brands as a convicted criminal appear to be Biden’s primary motivations for debating in the first place.

Biden and his closest aides are said to be convinced that the righteousness of their cause and Trump’s alleged threat to democracy will deliver a second term. Top political adviser Mike Donilon told the New Yorker in March that by Election Day “the focus will become overwhelming on democracy. I think the biggest images in people’s minds are going to be of Jan. 6.”

The president’s allies reportedly believe they proved naysayers and pollsters wrong in the midterm elections by putting democracy and “ultra-MAGA,” a focus group-tested phrase attributed to research helmed by senior Biden adviser Anita Dunn, on the ballot that year. They say that is how they beat Trump the first time around in 2020, even though, Donilon said, “our own pollsters told us that talking about ‘the soul of the nation’ was nutty.”

One problem is that few other Democrats outside Biden’s inner circle accept this theory. Biden is running behind, and sometimes well behind, Democratic Senate candidates in Ohio, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Arizona, and Nevada. Few at-risk Democrats campaigned with the president in 2022, when Republicans still managed to win the popular vote for the House of Representatives even if their eventual majority was underwhelming.

“If the election were today, we would lose,” Democratic strategist Howard Wolfson told Axios for a story replete with hand-wringing about Biden’s campaign. “Can that change? Yes. Is it on the path to do so? I don’t see that yet.” The White House would undoubtedly counter that Wolfson worked for former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg in 2020, one of the many Democrats who lost to Biden.

The other issue is that if you truly believe Trump’s election endangers democracy, a close race is hardly comforting. In fact, it has only heightened Democratic anxiety. George H.W. Bush wiped out a 17-point Michael Dukakis lead much later in the 1988 cycle. Trump is clinging to a 0.5-point lead in the national RealClearPolitics polling average before either convention, and Democrats fear the worst.

Democrats are already traumatized by their unexpected loss to Trump in 2016. One party strategist described it to the Washington Examiner’s Naomi Lim as a feeling of “existential dread.” The fate of democracy being at best a jump ball is as demoralizing as it is motivating.

Having a debate in late June, weeks ahead of the Democratic National Convention, affords Biden the opportunity to recover from a subpar performance. But it also carries some risks. Democratic operatives are already questioning Biden’s reelection strategy. A few, such as longtime Clinton family political consigliere James Carville, have openly expressed doubt the octogenarian president should have run for a second term. Liberal pundits regularly float scenarios by which Democrats should switch Biden out for another nominee in Chicago in August.

If Biden stumbles, all this talk will intensify. While it doesn’t guarantee anything will actually be done about his candidacy, Democratic chatter about his weakness could become a self-fulfilling prophecy. And the panic would set in before Biden is his party’s official nominee.

There are also signs the Biden camp doesn’t see the 2024 electoral landscape as all sunshine and rainbows. “Where is [first lady] Jill Biden today?” Trump pollster Jim McLaughlin asked at an event in Washington, D.C., earlier this month. The answer was Minnesota, a state that hasn’t voted for a Republican presidential candidate since Richard Nixon’s 49-state landslide in 1972, the only one of the 50 never won by Ronald Reagan.

Both the White House and Biden’s campaign have furiously pushed back against viral videos purporting to document presidential senior moments, blasting them as “cheap fakes.” (This is a fancy way of quibbling with the editing and context of footage that is not literally fake.)

Debating Trump after conditioning participation on the former president’s good behavior and dismissing him as “thirsty for attention” when he called for debates “anytime” suggests some trepidation. So does cutting the number of encounters from the three recommended by the Commission on Presidential Debates, which the Biden campaign has now effectively scrapped, to two and having the first one so early.

If Biden risks coming across as feeble, the danger for Trump is appearing unhinged. In 2020, Trump was more energetic than his Democratic rival. But he was also too aggressive. Trump appears sure that the voters will respond well to him beating up an old man on the debate stage. This is no certainty. And after multiple indictments, including two cases brought by the Biden Justice Department, Trump could come across as even angrier than he did four years ago.

“If he makes this about vengeance and personal enemies, he’ll lose that empathy he got from the [Manhattan] verdict,” Republican pollster Brent Buchanan wrote in a memo. “Democrats handed him an unintended favor but it’s fragile. Trump needs to leverage it sharply, not wield it broadly.”

Biden could also beat Trump in the expectations game. Polling by James Johnson and Landon Wall found 50% think Trump will win the debate, while only 39% say the same about Biden. Only Democrats and Biden voters expect the incumbent to win. That percentage is lower among Biden 2020 voters than it is among voters sticking with him a second time.

Nearly four-fifths of voters anticipate Trump will interrupt Biden, according to Johnson and Wall. Majorities also expect him to tell a rambling story (61%) and have his microphone cut off (54%). But overall, respondents were less flattering in the predictions about Biden. A solid 70% expect the president to garble his words, while 49% think he will forget where he is. Forty-one percent believe Biden will walk off the wrong end of the stage, and 40% think he will have trouble standing.

This reinforces the idea that voters see Biden as doddering and Trump as obnoxious. But as was the case with the State of the Union address earlier this year, coming on the heels of a special counsel report describing Biden as an “elderly man with a poor memory,” all he may have to do is be basically competent and win the news cycle, if not the debate itself.

Trump is so confident that any debate with Biden will redound to his benefit that he eagerly agreed to his opponent’s terms despite normally being a stickler for the ground rules. There will be no audience, no Fox News, no announced conservative moderators, and decreased ability simply to shout over Biden or interject with attack lines or quips.

Perhaps these constraints will force Trump to be more disciplined or will enhance the impression he is being treated unfairly. But this does take a lot of Trump’s proven debating methods off the table after he skipped all the Republican primary debates to starve his opponents of media oxygen. If Trump underperforms, the decision not to haggle more over how the debates are conducted will be second-guessed.

Finally, while the New York conviction hasn’t upended the race and some pollsters believe whatever modest losses Trump suffered were at least partially offset by increased Republican intensity, there have been some signs of tightening. Biden just had his best Fox News poll this election cycle, even if it showed him leading Trump by only 2 points in a two-way race and by 1 point when three other candidates were included. Trump should want to regain whatever momentum he has lost.

Both Biden and Trump face an uphill battle in terms of changing how they are perceived by the public. Trump was a celebrity for decades before entering national politics. Biden was first elected to the Senate more than 50 years ago. They have dominated daily headlines for years.

When pollsters Johnson and Wall asked respondents to sum up Biden in a single word, even Democrats said “old.” Independents added “incompetent.” Republicans also floated “liar,” “senile,” and “bad,” among other choice adjectives.

For Trump, there was more variety. It ranged from “evil” and “criminal” as the Democrats’ responses to “American,” “awesome,” and “leader” when answered by Republicans. He should be bothered by the independents’ word cloud including “disgusting” and “corrupt,” though “honest” also makes an appearance.

The best news for Trump in Johnson and Wall’s numbers is that he is many voters’ idea of a “dream president.” Among Democrats, that is truer for former President Barack Obama than Biden. That’s another reason the “August surprise” talk won’t go away.

CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER

It will probably take more than a debate or two to alter any of these impressions at this point. At the same time, the race is close enough that small things could make a difference.

Biden is willing to take a chance. Trump is getting what he wished for. We will soon see who comes out ahead.

W. James Antle III is executive editor of the Washington Examiner magazine.