How the Debate Could Change the Race

Why Trump has far more to lose than Biden.

For the first time since it officially began, the 2024 election is seeing something very big: actual movement. While it took a bit longer to show up in the polls than it probably should have, voters have finally begun to react to Trump being convicted of 34 felonies. Contrary to the delusions shared by the right, the prospect of America’s first criminal president did not move people to the Republican side. Even though most voters still said that the case had little bearing on their vote, “most” is not “all.” As a result, Biden has made small, but crucial, gains in the averages, rising from a 1.7-point deficit against Trump on the day of the conviction to his first lead against Trump in nearly ten months. Given the state of the electoral map, this matters quite a bit. Just this two-point shift to the left puts the President very close to leading in 270 electoral votes worth of states.

Even more important that the exact size of these gains are what they say about the campaign. During the eight-month period when Trump held a consistent national lead, the thing that made him look strong wasn’t the size of his advantage (he was never up by that much). It was how the polls seemed to never respond to any events, ever, no matter how good they were for Biden or how bad they were for Trump. Countless months of positive economic news failed to make a dent. Neither did Trump’s still-endless scandals and gaffes, from his criminal indictments to his proposals to suspend the Constitution to his promise to be a “dictator on day one.” After nearly half a year of this, it was hard not to wonder if the race, for as close as it was, was essentially frozen: that voters had already seen enough from both men, and that there was nothing that could occur over the next four months that could get them to change their minds.

Now, this does not appear to be the case. Despite how politically spent both candidates are, what we have seen since the conviction shows that there is still a meaningful proportion of voters still liable to switch between the candidates. As for who these people are are, who can say? Perhaps they simply aren’t paying attention. Perhaps they just have a really high bar for what could make Trump truly unacceptable. Perhaps they adore both Biden and Trump and can’t decide between the two. The law of averages says that some of these people have to exist.

In any case, this fact puts the race in a very interesting position as this year’s June debate approaches. Now that we know that it is not, in fact, the case that nothing ever happens, how much could this year’s inaugural debate impact the election? Is it worth writing off the likely-unwatchable event as a meaningless spectacle not worth watching? Should you actually pay it some mind as a meaningless spectacle that could make a difference? In this article, I will go through the history of presidential debates to determine how much this week’s bout could change things—and why it will almost certainly end up poorly for one Donald J. Trump.

They are in love <3