So far, post-verdict polling has been devastating — just not for the candidate you expected it to be. Various polls since last week's verdict have shown little to no shift in Joe Biden's favor, and some have suggested a boost for Donald Trump. On balance, though, we're seeing very little movement, which suggests that the impact of the trial on the election was baked into the cake well before the verdict.
And according to Frank Luntz, that's the big story.
During an interview on Bloomberg, Luntz was asked if it is too early to tell the true impact of the verdict on the outcome of the election. So, what, if anything, can impact the outcome? According to Luntz, it's the debates.
"It's actually — it's soon enough to know that it's not going to significantly alter the results at this moment," he said. "That, in fact, the two presidential debates are going to be more important, that the gains that Trump made among union members, Hispanics, and young African American men are significant and they're holding, that Biden's gains among middle-aged female suburban voters, those are holding. And basically, this feels more like World War I — that is just simply a ground game."
Luntz continued:
It's — it's a war of attrition, and this simply isn't that big dramatic event that most people have expected if Donald Trump was — and has been — found guilty and all charges and that's what I need to emphasize. The assumption was, 90 days ago, that Donald Trump is found guilty the bottom would drop out of his support and that has not happened. He is weakened. People have started to reconsider whether or not they supporting him, but there's been no dramatic shift. And that in itself is a very big story.
Think about this for a minute. According to Luntz, the debates are going to have a bigger impact on the election than the verdict. That's a remarkable prediction considering that debates rarely move the needle. But if Luntz is right, that's not a good thing for Joe Biden.
If Biden needs the debates to reset his campaign and gain momentum, he's in real trouble. His cognitive decline is out there for all to see. For a while, Democrats kept pointing to his State of the Union address as proof that he's strong, vibrant, and able to handle the presidency. However, they've stopped doing so more recently because there have been so many new examples of his slipping that pointing to one speech (for which he was likely drugged) isn't exactly a winning strategy.
Related: The Trump Verdict Continues to Backfire on Biden
It's true that the debates are happening earlier this year and that the terms set by the Biden campaign were designed to help Biden, not Trump, but Biden has to have a flawless debate performance to have a chance at moving the needle in his favor. Does anyone believe that's possible?
Even while medicated, Biden had issues reading from his teleprompter, and his ability to speak without a script has often led to disastrous results. Some have even argued that the reason the Biden campaign pushed for debates to happen earlier is so that if it's a disaster for Biden, time will eventually minimize the impact.
