Biden Is Setting Trump Up At The First Presidential Debate

The Biden campaign appears to have a calculated debate strategy and so far, Trump has played into their hands.

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With One Week To Go Biden And Trump’s Debate Strategies Take Shape

I love presidential debates. I could do a newsletter each day discussing presidential debates and historical parallels and talking about the process. The only things that I enjoy more than debates are legislative process, and election nights, which might be the most completely nerdy political scientist thing that you will ever read in a newsletter.

In a week, Biden and Trump will be debating.

2024 presents the rare occurrence of a general election rematch. There hasn’t been a general election rematch since 1956 in the United States, and that year isn’t very instructive because television was still in its infancy as a mass medium, and in 2024, both of the candidates have been or are president.

The value of debates has diminished with the rise of polarization. Studies have found that debates don’t move the needle or influence presidential election outcomes.

This is mostly due to the fact that people who don’t pay attention to politics, not surprisingly, also don’t watch debates.

Debates have also become less informative, morphing into entertainment spectacles that are cash cows for the networks that air them.

2024 presents an interesting experiment because the Biden campaign got what it wanted by moving up the debate schedule. The Biden theory of the case is that voters are voting earlier than ever, and they are just starting to pay attention to the election now, so by holding a debate before the conventions; they can get their message to more persuadable voters than if the traditional three debate post-Labor Day format was used.

It was shocking when Trump agreed to debate rules that were so unfavorable to him. These rules involve microphone cut-offs for going overtime, no written notes, no studio audience, and strict time limits on questions.

It is hard to escape the idea that Biden set up Trump with this debate structure.