Will Trump Regret Skipping The GOP Debates?
Welcome to FiveThirtyEightâs politics chat. The transcript below has been lightly edited. maya (Maya Sweedler, senior editor): The first Republican debate last Wednesday featured eight candidates â none of whom was the front-runner. Former President Donald Trump elected to skip the debate, writing on his social media website that âThe public knows who I am & what a successful Presidency I had.â In his absence, the other candidates ⌠well, what did the other candidates do, and was it effective? Some of FiveThirtyEightâs crack team is here to discuss Trumpâs decision, whether it was the right call for him and if he would be served well by making a similar one for the September debate. Letâs start with what happened last week. How did Trumpâs absence manifest in the debate? nrakich (Nathaniel Rakich, senior elections analyst): It didnât! The candidates generally refrained from mentioning or attacking Trump at all, with a couple of notable exceptions from anti-Trump candidates like former Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson and former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie. But they attacked him for his indictments and disrespect for the Constitution, not for skipping the debate. Monica Potts (Monica Potts, senior politics reporter): I was honestly surprised at how little he came up. The main question was whether all the candidates on stage would support the eventual nominee, with the baked-in assumption that it might be Trump despite his indictments, and Hutchinson and Christie did not say they would. Theyâve been critical of the former president throughout their campaigns, so this wasnât surprising. It also elicited boos from the audience. So in many ways Trump was there without being there. meredithconroy (Meredith Conroy, political science professor at California State University, San Bernardino, and FiveThirtyEight contributor): Well, if the question is how did the other candidates talk about his absence, you are both right. They didnât. But his absence was still felt and noticeable. And we know it forced the other candidates to rethink their strategies. From some of the reporting (and their campaigning thus far, too), it looked like the non-Trump candidates were going to attack each other or President Biden, but not Trump. I think that we saw more direct criticism of Trump without him on stage from former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley, former Vice President Mike Pence and Christie. Also, I think the âvibeâ was different. I canât go back in time, put him on stage, and see what the vibes would be like with him there, but there was more air for Republicans to discuss their issues, and I think they did so cogently â with some exceptions, of course. maya: If you were Trump watching Fox on Aug. 23, how would you feel about your odds? Better or worse, having watched your challengers on the stage? meredithconroy: If Iâm Trump (or his campaign), I do think I wouldâve advised against going to the first debate. Trump had nothing to directly gain from participating. But by sitting out, it opened the door for the other candidates to take up more space and attack him without rebuttal (although entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy seemed eager to play the role of Trump defender). But Iâd be looking at it and think I am a little worse off after the debate. Not only because polls like the one FiveThirtyEight did with Ipsos, conducted using Ipsosâs KnowledgePanel, shows this (the share of debate watchers considering him declined by about 5 percentage points), but also because other candidates are in the news cycle and gaining name recognition and credibility. nrakich: Right. According to our FiveThirtyEight/Washington Post/Ipsos poll, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, Haley and Ramaswamy all turned in strong performances in the eyes of Republican primary voters who tuned in. That said, if I were Trump, I would already be extremely confident in my chances. Heâs leading by 35 percentage points in our national polling average, for crying out loud. One debate isnât going to change that, no matter how well Haley or DeSantis did. Monica Potts: Right, Nathaniel. Also, Trump has always followed a different playbook than most candidates. We canât forget his counter-programming with the Tucker Carlson interview. Additionally, a Morning Consult poll released Tuesday showed that potential Republican primary voters found him more electable after the debate. Sixty-two percent said he had the best chance of beating Biden, up 9 points from the week before. nrakich: That said, our poll with The Washington Post and Ipsos found that only 7 percent of primary voters who skipped the debate watched that Carlson interview. meredithconroy: And the ones who skipped the debate for the Trump interview were his most fervent supporters. But Iâm glad you brought up his interview with Carlson, Monica. Because youâre right, itâs not as if he is just sitting around watching this race happen. He does have his own playbook, and his supporters are still getting their fill. nrakich: Trump isnât sitting around watching the race happen; he is the race. meredithconroy: Yes! I donât disagree with that. I just do think he could trip and fall (or is he the arena in this metaphor?), given how polarizing he is, even within his own party. That he has viable challengers at all is important! ⌠One thousand political scientists now hang their heads in shame at my assessment. ðŸËâ maya: Why, Meredith? meredithconroy: Just based on the state of things that political scientists study, and say matter â his enormous lead in the polls, the shift of the GOP base to the party of Trump (even without Trump), the endorsements heâs received, his campaign cash ⌠it all points to a Trump nomination. Oh, and the fact that political science scholarship finds debates to hardly matter. ðŸË⌠nrakich: Just ask Rick Perry what he thinks of that. ðŸËâş meredithconroy: Oops. maya: Given that, is there any downside to blowing off the September debate as well? And whatâs the utility of a national platform like a debate stage in this instance? The Fox debate did get nearly 13 million viewers, according to the network. Monica Potts: I donât think thereâs any downside to him skipping. It will let his opponents grab some headlines, potentially. But with his indictments and responses to them, he stays in the news and in the spotlight. His surrender to Georgia authorities was treated almost like a campaign stop. Those things will only strengthen his support among the die-hard Trump fans. The unknown is what more persuadable voters will think, but that seems like more of a question for the general than for the primary. nrakich: If I were advising Trump, I would be really unsure about what to recommend for future debates. According to the FiveThirtyEight/Washington Post/Ipsos poll, Trump did lose potential support among Republican debate watchers â before the debate, 66 percent said they were considering voting for him, but after it, that number was down to 61 percent. Thatâs not a big deal after just one debate, but if he skips all of the debates, it starts to add up, right? (Of course, thereâs no guarantee that he would lose the same amount of support after each debate. And weâre only talking about debate watchers here.) That said, the risk of showing up and having a bad debate that is even worse for your numbers is real. meredithconroy: There are downsides â his closest rivals keep gaining steam and viability, etc. But I agree that the risk of showing up and having a bad debate is the greater threat, so Iâd probably advise sitting out. And he can keep doing his own events, like the Carlson interview, in their place. nrakich: I think the wild card is just, do the other candidates attack him more or less if he does show up? Going into the debate, I would have agreed with what you said earlier, Meredith, that sitting out made it easier for the others to attack him. But they didnât. So now Iâm wondering if having him on stage would actually make them attack him more. In which câŚ
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