Taking on Trump: Biden’s desperate debate strategy
Joe Biden has no choice but to debate Donald Trump.
The Biden campaign has finally admitted he is behind — it’s time for desperate measures.
And so President Biden has agreed to debate Donald Trump. Not only is this decision perilous (though necessary), but the conditions agreed upon for the first debate are foolish and reflect an inexcusable misunderstanding of both candidates.
It is quite astonishing how much Team Biden is frozen by loud, obnoxious voices in the New York-Washington media echo chamber. These voices do not represent the country at-large, and it particularly does not represent people's views in swing states. Biden is impotently mumbling and stumbling through the Israel-Hamas war, hectored by a microscopic minority of the population. He cannot take action to limit illegal immigration and has no answers on inflation.
I doubt it is a coincidence that the recent and disastrous New York Times-Siena poll immediately preceded Biden throwing down the debate challenge (or accepting it, depending on your perspective). Nothing induces panic in elite New York-D.C. circles than bad news in the supposed paper of record.
Never mind that their polling is nothing special, and certainly no better than pollsters like YouGov and Morning Consult.
Any bad news or opinion served up by the Times is certain to rattle Democratic elites, but anything favorable to Trump is far, far worse. This latest poll — just the latest in a stream of bad polls for Biden — provoked the fury of Joe Scarborough and other Biden proxies in the media. After all, the New York Times is supposed to be on their team! It is not so much the numbers that hurt as the betrayal.
Biden is losing, so has no choice but to debate. Not only are his polling numbers awful, they are durably awful. His RealClearPolitics average approval is at negative 16 points and trending downward. His approval on inflation, which continues to be the top issue, is even worse. The most recent YouGov poll has him at 30 percent approval (a number propped up by reflexive Democratic support) to 62 percent disapproval. Among independents he is down 20 percent approve to 66 percent disapprove.
In an April YouGov poll, the last time this question was polled, voters solidly believed the economy would be better with Trump. Just 21 percent said the economy would get better with Biden, versus 47 percent who said it would get worse, with a plurality in all age groups against Biden. In contrast, 42 percent thought the economy would improve under Trump (including a slight plurality of independents), versus 34 percent who disagreed.
Although the national ballot test is close, many swing states are not. Georgia, Arizona and Nevada have Trump well ahead in their RCP averages, with the former president riding a several-month winning streak in each state. The Great Lakes states of Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania are essentially tied. Biden has to sweep them all to win — a tough task.
Biden has had the occasional improvement in the national ballot test, but some of the polls showing this oversample Democrats. The real problem is that his approvals are not getting better, nor are his ratings on any of the important issues. The State of the Union address was an overhyped nothingburger. Biden must change things up now.
Biden has to return to the strategy that won in 2020: Run as the not-Trump.
Trump remains unpopular with a negative 10 percent RCP average approval rating — better than Biden, but still bad. When two candidates have negative approvals, the one in the spotlight loses. So Biden needs to put Trump in the spotlight.
Trump’s greatest weaknesses are his ego, his thirst for attention and his complete lack of discipline. Even though putting the spotlight on the guy down 17-points in approval is in his interest, Trump can’t help himself. He has to make everything about Trump. And Team Biden knows that. That’s why so much of the State of the Union was about bashing Trump.
The correct debate strategy would be to get a repeat of the first 2020 debate. A raucous, barely-controlled affair, that debate featured angry Trump mixing it up with the moderators and hogging the attention. Biden, fresh from days of practice in his basement, and his advisers correctly fearful of gaffes, had to be thrilled that Trump made such a spectacle of himself, allowing Biden to escape by saying as little as possible.
Incredibly, the Biden campaign demanded there be no audience at the first debate, amid other restrictions that will make the debates a more staid affair. Biden campaign chair Jen O’Malley Dillon harrumphed that they do not want “noisy spectacles of approval or jeering.” As Forrest Gump once said, “Stupid is as stupid does.”
Trump feeds off his audience. He plays to them. If half the audience is composed of rambunctious MAGAs, Trump will keep pushing the envelope to get their whoops and applause. And that is exactly what Biden needs to happen. Trump’s weakness is that voters who dislike both candidates (and who will decide the race) are repelled by Trump’s peripatetic rantings and ravings.
Surely the Biden strategy will be to zing Trump on his legal troubles, and surely Trump will take the bait and react with unbridled fury. A hooting crowd would encourage Trump. And Trump unbound is not what the voters want. What is propping Biden up is the nagging unease with Trump and the circus around him.
And then there is Biden himself. He is definitely not ready for this. Even with days of practice and a teleprompter, he only made it 20 minutes in this year’s State of the Union before he started garbling his speech.
Recall the second 2020 debate where, supposedly “benefiting” from the mute button, Biden made more than a few blunders. The most terrifying thing in Washington is Biden alone in front of a microphone.
The Harvard-Harris poll has 55 percent of all voters and 62 percent of independents saying Biden is not mentally fit for office. Seventy-one percent of independents think Biden is too old to be president and a further 52 percent of independents think he is getting worse — as do pluralities in all age groups. Simply put, Biden is one public meltdown away from being forced off the ticket.
What Team Biden should want is a debate where Biden talks as little as possible and Trump performs his insult-comic routine in front of a Jerry Springer-style audience. More Biden is clearly not better.
There is one Machiavellian move that might be part of the Democrats’ calculus. Holding a debate in late June with Biden operating under what are clearly disadvantageous conditions puts the president to the test.
If he fails the test, Democrats still have enough time to switch him out for Vice President Kamala Harris. Not much of an improvement, but at least she isn’t on the wrong side of 80, and she might bring a little better energy and less angst to the ticket.
And this is where Trump’s team failed. Given Biden’s bad numbers and his struggles outside of tightly scripted situations, Trump should have pushed to move the summer debate as late as possible. A Biden meltdown in mid-August would be far worse than one in late June.
Still, no matter how you cut it, Team Biden is taking a big risk. But they don’t have much of a choice.
Keith Naughton is co-founder of Silent Majority Strategies, a public and regulatory affairs consulting firm, and a former Pennsylvania political campaign consultant.