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It’s the last-chance saloon for President Donald Trump if he wants to turn around the trends in the White House race, according to some political analysts.
Thursday’s night presidential debate, the final such face-off before the Nov. 3 election, comes as betting markets and swing-state polls keep favoring Democratic challenger Joe Biden.
“The debate is the last big audience of the election season. Trump really needs a good night to turn around the unfavorable environment for him,” said Stephen Farnsworth, a professor of political science at the University of Mary Washington in Virginia.
The Republican incumbent must “reach out to people beyond the 40-45 percent of the electorate supporting him consistently” and do that “sooner rather than later, as millions of Americans are voting already,” Farnsworth told MarketWatch in an email. More than 31 million Americans have cast their ballots either by mail or in-person as of Tuesday, according to a U.S. Elections Project tally.
The 90-minute debate is slated to start at 9 p.m. Eastern Time Thursday, with Belmont University in Nashville, Tenn., serving as the host and NBC’s Kristen Welker as the moderator. The topics are expected to include the government’s COVID-19 response, climate change and national security, meaning there could be implications for the health-care XLV, +0.13%, energy XLE, +1.18% and defense ITA, -0.62% sectors.
Betting markets tracked by RealClearPolitics are giving Biden a 62% chance of winning the presidential election as of Wednesday, and the former vice president has an advantage of 4.0 percentage points in a RCP average of polls focused on top swing states that are likely to decide the election. Trump and his campaign have said pollsters are getting the White House race wrong — and have noted that forecasts and surveys favored Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton in 2016 but she didn’t become president.
Trump’s situation at the upcoming debate can be likened to a struggling batter’s predicament in a baseball game’s final inning, according to Larry Jacobs, director of the University of Minnesota’s Center for the Study of Politics and Governance.
“President Trump is like the baseball player who comes to the plate in the 9th with 2 outs, 2 on, down by 1 run — after striking out in his past 3 at bats. Can the player figure out what he’s doing wrong and correct it?” Jacobs said in an email.
The Minnesota professor isn’t counting on a big shift.
“Trump may be less out of control on Thursday than his last debate but a turnaround that we haven’t seen over the past 4 years is unlikely,” Jacobs said. He also argued that no modern presidential candidate has run a worse campaign, saying Trump looks incapable of taking advice and has offended key voting groups such as women, seniors, independents and people of color.
The first Biden-Trump debate, a chaotic clash held on Sept. 29, featured frequent interruptions — mostly by Trump, but some also by Biden. In response to how that face-off turned out, the nonpartisan Commission on Presidential Debates on Monday announced that microphones will be cut off at Thursday’s debate to allow two-minute answers.
In order to be viewed as the winner, Trump must behave better and avoid making constant interruptions, according to Mary Washington’s Farnsworth.
“Trump’s strongest suit is the economic performance of the first three years as president, before COVID. He needs to do more to focus on economic issues rather than complaining so much about how he is treated by the media and by Democratic politicians,” Farnsworth said.
“Feeling intensely sorry for oneself is not going to win over the sliver of voters who have not already decided which candidate to support.”
Related:Trump loses big edge over Biden on the economy as election looms
Also see:How key swing states are leaning in the presidential race — and how they’re weathering the recession
Thursday’s face-off follows last week’s dueling town halls, which occurred on the night when a debate originally had been scheduled to take place. After Trump tested positive for COVID-19, organizers switched to a virtual format, and the president objected and pulled out. At his town hall on ABC, Biden continued his attacks on his opponent’s handling of the coronavirus crisis, while Trump called for a middle-class tax cut if he’s re-elected and was grilled by an NBC host about conspiracy theories.
“One thing Biden needs to focus on is developing crisper answers, and maybe go a bit lighter on the details,” Farnsworth said. “During his town hall conversation last week, some of Biden’s answers were too detailed and ran the risk of losing some in the audience.”
Sarita McCoy Gregory, who chairs the department of political science and history at Hampton University in Virginia, said she would “love to hear [Biden] address young voters, like the young man from his town hall. There is an uncomfortable number of young voters who still plan to sit out this election. Talk about the issues that they care about: climate change, education and equal rights.”
She also said it would be good if the former VP, known for talking about his Catholic faith and military personnel, made an effort to reach out to other faith communities, as well as to other groups such as the unemployed, immigrant families or the LGBTQIA (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, intersex and allied) community.
Gregory, whose research interests include Black women’s politics, added that she’ll be tracking the dynamic between Trump and the debate’s moderator, as the president previously has been hostile toward Black women journalists.
“Trump has already tweeted that Ms. Welker is ‘terrible & unfair’ before the debate even takes place,” she said in an e-mail. “I will be paying attention to how he behaves on Thursday. As will other American women who vote.”
Now read:Trump raised 5 times as much money from America’s top CEOs as Biden
And see:Here are the Senate races to watch, as Democrats battle to take control from Republicans
This is an updated version of a report first published on Oct. 20, 2020.
