Trump’s Biggest Problem at the Debate . . . Was Trump

On the menu today: This morning, a whole lot of people in right-world want to argue that last night’s debate didn’t go as well as it should have for Donald Trump, because the moderators were unfair in their questioning and challenging of Trump’s assertions while giving Kamala Harris a pass. Eh, the biggest problem for Trump last night was Trump.

I find myself genuinely curious to see if the poll numbers shift at all in the coming weeks. On paper, Kamala Harris’s campaign got exactly what it wanted. She appeared poised, calm, cool, collected — the experienced prosecutor. Trump was a teapot boiling over — fuming, scowling, and shouting through most of the night.

So — again on paper — Trump was terrible, and you would think his poll numbers, nationwide and in the swing states, would nosedive. But what we saw Tuesday night wasn’t all that different from the same Trump we’ve seen year after year. And remember when Trump’s conviction was supposed to be a game-changer? The numbers barely budged.

Trump isn’t neck-and-neck in this race because Americans are charmed by his personality. He’s neck-and-neck in this race because of the national exhaustion with the Biden administration status quo, and frustration with inflation and the high cost of living, an insecure southern border, and a sense of growing chaos overseas. So, yes, in theory, this should have been a Harris knockout blow. But if this sort of contrast works, and one sort of performance is so much better than the other . . . why is Trump still so close to reaching 270 or more electoral votes?