It was another gut punch for the Donald. Team Trump thoroughly expected to put Sleepy Joe Biden to rest in the Nielsen ratings, but even with NBC cable channels figured in he was unable to top Biden's Town Hall on ABC. Making it even worse is that Joe went 15 rounds as opposed to Donald's 10, as Joe fielded questions for 90 minutes while Donald ducked out after 60 minutes. For a guy who has been telling us that Joe is over the hill, Biden was far more cogent and better able to respond to the questions that were addressed to him than was Dodgy Donald Trump, who couldn't even remember when he last took a coronavirus test.
Yes, it was another disgraceful evening for our embattled president. Even his friends at Fox were confused by his performance, given NBC essentially gifted him a 60-minute free political ad at the last moment. The Donald has had to pull ads throughout the country as funds have run dry in these last three weeks of the campaign. But, Samantha Guthrie wasn't letting him have an easy time of it, with a notably perspiring president feeling the heat on an outdoor stage in Miami. For the record, the temperature was a mild 80 degrees Fahrenheit.
After another dreadful performance, one begs to ask the question why his campaign team would let him face another Town Hall, a format that doesn't suit the SCROTUS at all. He showed this last month on ABC. Trump likes to be in command of his events. He hates responding to questions, unless they are flattering ones, and even this woman said afterward that she is still voting for Biden.
Trump is only in his element at rallies or calling in on his favorite talk shows. He craves an adoring audience and talk show hosts, not ones that question him. So, why doesn't Fox stage a Town Hall for him, moderated by Sean Hannity? I suppose it is because Team Trump thought an evening with NBC and its affiliated cable networks would give him a larger viewing audience and legitimacy. In the end, however, he garnered approximately 13.5 million viewers. Even on his best night, Sean can only muster 4.5 million viewers. The only problem is that Joe averaged 15 million viewers on ABC, peaking as high as 16.5 million after Trump had left the air.
With less than three weeks to go before election day, this isn't where you want your candidate to be sitting in the polls. He trails Joe by as much as 17 points nationally, and 538 gives Biden an aggregate 10.5 percentage point lead. What's worse is that Trump trails in almost every battleground state, albeit within the margin of error in some of these states. He's even trailing in states he should be comfortably ahead, like Georgia, and barely ahead in other states he handily won in 2016, like Texas. It would take an incredible miracle at this point to pull off an election day victory, or some story that sinks Biden, which is what the New York Post tried to do but has failed. Even Rupert Murdoch, who owns the Post, believes Trump's goose is cooked. The only question is the impact his loss will have on down ballot Republicans, which has deeply concerned senators like Ted Cruz and Ben Sasse, both seeing a potential "bloodbath."
Before Democrats start feeling too good about themselves they have to remember Hillary was really rocking at this point of the 2016 election as well. However, she trailed Trump in significant demographic groups, notably senior citizens and white women. Biden currently leads in both these demographics, and has closed the gap in many others that favor Trump, notably those persons without a college degree that so heavily favored the president last time around. So, yes, this is very much Biden's election to lose, but it has been done before.
Trump was hoping that a Russia probe ordered by his Attorney General would be released before the election, in which he would not only be fully exonerated of any wrong-doing in the infamous 2016 Russian election-tampering case that led to the Mueller investigation, but that much of the blame for that investigation would be foisted on Biden, even if it was his own Attorney General, Jeff Sessions, who ordered that investigation. A fuming Donald dumped his wrath on Bill Barr, wanting him to indict Biden and Obama anyway, as if this were Russia or Belarus.
Saying Trump is unhinged is to put it mildly. This guy is in his last desperate throes of denial, hoping to pin anything on Biden or Harris in these remaining 17 days before the election. He may indeed have to leave the country, as he intoned during a rally, because there are any number of criminal cases pending against him once he is out of office.
Each day gone is another day lost with the record early voting taking place. More than 22 million votes have already been cast across the country. Trump has to make these remaining days count and that means putting him on a stage where he shines, and not because of a sweaty face.
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