OPINION: This article may contain commentary which reflects the author's opinion.
The news has become even more devastating for President Joe Biden since his disastrous debate with former President Donald Trump.
CNN numbers analyst Harry Enten spoke about how the president’s performance, along with his poll numbers prior to the debate, could mean that he is defeated by former President Donald Trump in November.
Enten explained that the previous three candidates who were behind in the polls before their first debate were then perceived as having been beaten by their rivals and went on to lose their elections.
“The title of this. I have this title page every single time. This time, it’s Trump’s first debate victory. And that has two meanings. The first is that, you know, last night was the first debate of this cycle, but the second is it’s actually his first general debate victory in the minds of the voters ever, ever,” he said.
“2016 Hillary Clinton won all the debates last time around, Joe Biden won all the debates. Here’s the first debate winner margins dating back to 2012. Look here. Mitt Romney won by 42 points. Hillary Clinton just won by 13. Joe Biden last time around, one by 32. Look at this. This year is the exact inverse of where we were four years ago,” the analyst went on.
“Donald Trump won this debate by 34 points by a 67 to 33% margin. So the fact of the matter is, Donald Trump’s performance last night was the best performance he ever put forth in the American voters’ minds on a debate stage. Or it could be argued that Joe Biden’s debate performance was so bad that he managed to make Donald Trump actually look good,” he said.
“With that 34-point lead. Does this mean, can we just go ahead and assume that this is going to give him a bump when it comes to what voters will do?” anchor Sara Sidner said.
“History isn’t always precedent. But in this particular case, poll bump after winning the first debate, look at this. Joe Biden last time around, got a poll bump. Hillary Clinton got a poll bump in 2016. Mitt Romney, after winning the first debate, got a poll bump in 2012. And in 2008, Barack Obama got a poll bump. And if you look on average across those four different first debates, guess what? The person who won the debate gained four points on average” the analyst said.
“And of course, at this particular point, what we were dealing with going into this particular debate, if you looked at that CNN poll polls yesterday, Donald Trump was already ahead by two points. So if you apply that, you could end up, if history holds, on average, you could be looking at a mid-single-digit lead for Donald Trump,” he said.
“And you know what? Again, we’re talking about unprecedented debate performances for Donald Trump. Donald Trump, outside of the convention after the RNC in 2016, has never held such a large lead as this could potentially end up being — if history holds, of course — history isn’t always precedent. We don’t know what exactly will happen, but if you’re looking back at history at this point, this history is very bad for the man who won the first debate four years ago,” he said.
But the anchor wanted to know how these numbers bode for the president as he heads into what is likely to be his last election this November.
“Nothing good, nothing good Sara Sider. Nothing good for them. All right. Incumbents who trailed prior to and then lost the first debate — Jimmy Carter, George H.W. Bush, Donald Trump, Joe Biden. Well, we don’t know what’s going to happen this year, but we know what happened with the three other guys. You know what happened with them? They were one and done. They all lost reelection,” the analyst said.
“And at this particular case, Joe Biden, you’re looking at those polls right now, looking at those post-debate polls, looking at that Democratic panic. There’s really no good news except for the fact that fortunately for Joe Biden, the election isn’t today or tomorrow. It’s in November because he’s going to need that time to make up for what was a historically bad performance for the current president of the United States,” said Enten.
