Taking on Trump: Biden’s desperate debate strategy 

The Biden camp finally admitted he is behind — The time has come for a desperate measure.

And President Biden agreed to discuss Donald Trump. Not only is this decision dangerous (though necessary), but the terms agreed upon in the first debate are foolish and reflect an unacceptable misunderstanding on the part of both candidates.

It is quite surprising how much Team Biden is frozen in place by the loud and obnoxious voices in the media echo chambers of New York and Washington. These voices do not represent the nation as a whole, and especially do not represent the views of people in battleground states. Biden is at the mercy of the bad guys, mumbling and stumbling helplessly during the Israel-Hamas war. microscopic minority of the population. He can’t take steps to limit illegal immigration and has no answers about inflation.

I don’t believe that recent tragic events are a coincidence. New York Times and Siena Poll Biden abandoned (or accepted, depending on how you look at it) the debate challenge shortly before that. Nothing causes panic in the elites of New York and Washington, D.C., like bad news from the paper of record.

Their polling is nothing special, and certainly not better than polling organizations like YouGov and Morning Consult.

While the bad news and opinions published by the Times are sure to sway Democratic Party elites, the ones favorable to Trump are much worse. This latest poll is just the latest in a series of bad polls for Biden, sparking national outrage. Joe Scarborough Other Biden surrogates in the media. After all, the New York Times is joining their team! Betrayal hurts more than numbers.

Biden is losing so we have no choice but to debate. His voting numbers aren’t just terrible, they’re permanently terrible.His RealClearPolitics mean approval It is on a downward trend at minus 16 points. His support on inflation, which remains a top issue, is even worse.Latest YouGov Polls show him with a 30% approval rating (a figure supported by reflexive Democratic support) and a 62% disapproval rating. Among independents, support fell by 20%, while disapproval rose to 66%.

One April YouGov The last time this question was asked, voters strongly believed that the economy would be better with President Trump in place. Only 21% said Biden would make the economy better, while 47% said it would get worse, with many people in all age groups opposed to Biden. By contrast, 42% (including a slight majority of independents) think the economy will improve under Trump, while 34% disagree.

National voting tests are coming, but many battleground states are not. President Trump has a large lead in Georgia, Arizona, and Nevada. RCP average, the former president is riding a multi-month winning streak in each state. The Great Lakes states of Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania are virtually evenly matched. Biden will have to wipe them all out if he is to win, which is a difficult task.

Biden has shown occasional improvement in national polling tests, some polls show Oversample Democrats. The real problem is that his approval ratings haven’t improved, and neither have his ratings on important issues. The State of the Union address was an over-hyped nothingburger. Biden must change things now.

Biden must return to the strategy that won him in 2020: running as the anti-Trump.

President Trump’s unpopularity rating remains -10% Average support rate for RCP — Better than Biden, but still worse. If two candidates receive negative support, the one with more attention loses. Therefore, Mr. Biden needs to turn the spotlight on Mr. Trump.

Trump’s biggest weaknesses are his ego, thirst for attention, and complete lack of discipline. Although it is in President Trump’s interest to spotlight a man who is trailing by 17 points in the polls, he cannot help himself. He has to decide everything about Trump. And Team Biden knows it. This is why so much of the State of the Union speech was about criticizing Trump.

The correct discussion strategy is First debate of 2020. The debate was a raucous, barely controlled affair that featured an angry Trump who monopolized the spotlight by confusing the debate with the moderator. Biden, who had just finished a few days of practice in his basement, and his advisers, who were rightly afraid of a gaffe, allowed Trump to make such a show of himself and say as little as possible to let Biden get away with it. He must have been excited about that.

Incredibly, the Biden campaign called for no spectators for the first debate. Other limitations This will make the discussion more solid.Biden campaign chair Jen O’Malley Dillon shouted They don’t want “a noisy spectacle of approval or jeers.” As Forrest Gump once said, “A fool is as good as a fool.”

Trump is preying on his audience. He plays with them. If half the audience is made up of naughty MAGAs, Trump will continue to push the envelope to get their cheers and applause. And that’s exactly what Biden needs to do. Mr. Trump’s weakness is that voters who dislike both candidates (and who will decide the race) will rebel against Mr. Trump’s repeated abuse and abuse.

Biden’s strategy will certainly provoke Trump with legal issues, and Trump will certainly take the bait and react with unbridled anger. The crowd’s jeers will embolden Trump. And Trump’s release from custody is not what voters want. What sustains Biden is a deep-seated fear of Trump and the circus around him.

And then there’s Biden himself. He’s not ready for that yet. Even though he practiced for days and used a teleprompter, he only made it 20 minutes into this year’s State of the Union speech before his speech started to get chaotic.

please remember. 2nd debate in 2020 Biden has made a number of missteps in places where he appears to have benefited from the mute button. The scariest thing about Washington is seeing Biden alone in front of a microphone.

of Harvard University and Harris University Poll Fifty-five percent of all voters and 62% of independents say Biden is mentally unfit for office. Seventy-one percent of independents think Biden is too old to be president, and an additional 52% of independents think Biden is getting worse, even among multiples of all age groups. Simply put, Biden is one step away from being publicly disqualified.

What Team Biden wants is a debate in which Biden says as little as possible and Trump performs his usual insults in front of lawmakers. jerry springer style audience. Biden is not clearly better than this.

There is one Machiavellian move that may be part of the Democratic Party’s calculations. Holding a debate in late June under conditions that are clearly unfavorable to Biden will present a test for the president.

Even if he fails the test, Democrats still have plenty of time to replace him with Vice President Kamala Harris. It’s not a huge improvement, but at least she’s not below 80, which could give her a little more energy and less anxiety on her ticket.

And this is where the Trump team failed. Given Biden’s poor numbers and struggles outside of strictly planned situations, Trump should have pushed to hold the summer debate as late as possible. Biden’s mid-August meltdown will be far worse than his late June meltdown.

Still, no matter how you slice it, Team Biden is taking a big risk. But they don’t have much choice.

keith norton He is a co-founder of Silent Majority Strategies, a public and regulatory affairs consulting firm, and a former Pennsylvania political campaign consultant.