Key Points• 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 […] Read more »
Trump’s Chances Are Dwindling. That Could Make Him Dangerous.
President Trump’s quest to win a second term is not in good shape. He entered Tuesday night’s debate with roughly a 7- or 8-point deficit in national polls, putting him further behind at this stage of the race than any other candidate since Bob Dole in 1996. … At a […] Read more »
Joe Biden won Round One of the debate. Round Two is happening now.
The first wave of data is in, and it delivers a clear verdict: Joe Biden won Tuesday’s presidential debate. That’s unambiguously good news for Biden — but it’s not the whole story. A presidential “debate” is really a multi-part news cycle, one in which the clash between the candidates is […] Read more »
Do debates matter?
… We love the illusion that the skills on display in debates somehow map onto the requirements of the presidency; and that we render political verdicts based on what appears to be intellectual trial by combat. Don’t bet on it. In reality, debates have probably never decided a presidential election. […] Read more »
Who Won The First 2020 Presidential Debate?
On Tuesday, President Trump and Joe Biden faced off for the first time, in a rocky and, at times, tumultuous debate. We once again partnered with Ipsos to track how the debate affected Americans’ views of the election, using Ipsos’s KnowledgePanel to interview the same group of people both before […] Read more »
Trump’s mistake by the lake: Taking his own voters for granted
It doesn’t take a savvy political analyst to conclude that Tuesday night’s debate was a disaster for President Trump. Trailing badly in the national polls and a critical mass of battlegrounds, his only goal should have been to convince the small number of undecided voters that they should reelect him—despite […] Read more »