It’s a natural default assumption that when big-ticket events occur over the course of a presidential election, they are necessarily important. Everyone gets together for a debate that’s watched by millions of people; how could that not shape the outcome of the race?
But a funny thing happened in 2016. From the date of the first sanctioned debate by either party until both nominees clinched the necessary delegates, there was a period of only three days in which Donald Trump or Hillary Clinton didn’t lead in the polls. Trump and Clinton both faced threats at various times, but both essentially went wire to wire through the entire campaign.
As debate season looms in the 2020 contest, it’s worth considering how those encounters changed the field in 2016, particularly because the dynamics are similar. CONT.
Philip Bump, Washington Post