Biden Wins 1st Debate with Trump, But Effect of His Victory Is Uncertain

CNN and CBS polls indicate a victory for the Democrat; however, with the majority of voters already decided, the key issue will be convincing the few undecided voters in battleground states.

The instantaneous polls conducted immediately after the microphones were turned off in the uninterrupted 90-minute debate between Donald Trump and Joe Biden indicate that the Democratic candidate won the debate last Tuesday night, in a spectacle that was considered “confusing” and “chaotic” by most analysts. Regardless, this debate was the first in a presidential race that is only just beginning, despite the fact many of us feel it never ended in November 2016. This feeling of perpetual campaigning essentially defines the month that we are facing. To most Americans, to most of the world, last Tuesday night’s debate was not a turning point, not even an opening shot. It was only another grain of sand in a news desert that seems to be at both empty and oppressive.

Candidate debates provide information that voters demand, including new data, impressions and heretofore unknown aspects about candidates which voters must consider. The less voters know about candidates, or the newer the information is (i.e., the greater the distance between expectations and reality), the greater the demand for the kind of debate we saw. This election, the available information on candidates is exhaustive and tedious.

There are few Americans who have not already formed their opinion about Trump and Biden, so much so that the number of undecided among those likely to vote—i.e., the category of voters that polls tend to focus on in countries with traditionally low voter turnout—barely reaches 5% at most, and it has been that way since March, according to research conducted by the University of Monmouth’s renowned Polling Institute.

Nevertheless, it is true that not all decided voters are equal, even less so given the kind of surprising information that comes out in a debate. Tuesday night’s debate was particularly stingy in terms of new information (only 17% of people interviewed by CBS said that they felt “informed” following the debate, compared to 69% of people who stated they were “irritated”); however, given that we can’t look inside every citizen’s mind, we must be creative in determining the effect of each debate.

The Monmouth institute’s research helps us to identify the nuances in opinion that can end up deciding the effect of the recent debate and the debates that will follow. With this understanding, we can distinguish between the voters who have already decided on a candidate and those who are very likely, somewhat likely, or unlikely to vote based on how they feel today. The stability of this information helps determine the degree to which new information, new arguments, and decisions will sway voters.

The number of decided voters has grown in the past six months, as is usual. The closer to Election Day, the more certain people are about their choice. More than 75% of supporters for each candidate already know that they will not change their mind. Ipsos and FiveThirtyEight.com’s polling reveals similar results: about 8 in 10 voters already know whom they are going to vote for. But there are still between 15% to 25% of voters who may be undecided.

In line with these results, last week only 13% of voters stated that the debate would change their opinion. The profile of undecided voters is classic in any election: women, young, people of color and lower income (and lower education).

That is the kind of map of voters who are sensitive to information that comes out of a debate like the one last Tuesday. However, in an election that is decided state by state, and which will focus on a handful of states where the likely number of voters for each party is more or less the same, the key question is not the party that the majority of debate viewers belong to. The key question is where they are located.

Battleground States: Unpredictable Impact

The federal nature of elections in the United States means that national polling is not ideal for determining who is the actual winner of a debate. The year 2012 illustrates this to perfection. On Oct. 3, 2012 the consensus among analysts was that Obama had lost his first debate with Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney. National polls reflected just that: Obama lost 4.4 points from his margin of popularity after that date.

Nonetheless, in the few places that really mattered in the election, the president’s negative results barely supported a trend which was already underway. The debate did not change anything; it was simply a mirage left by national polls, supported by a new cycle of polling that at the time focused on Obama’s apparent defeat.

Subsequently, the trend reverted in Obama’s favor. Perhaps voters had decided that the information they got from the debate was not as definitive when compared to the information they already had about the candidates. Conversely, perhaps information obtained in the subsequent days made voters return to their original position. Obama would ultimately end up winning a majority in most battleground states, from Nevada to Florida, and would go on to win the popular vote by a wider margin than expected by the polls.

The moral of the story for Biden is clear. Tuesday night’s victory is small, momentary and uncertain. It occurred in the middle of a trench war that was defined ahead of time. Therefore, it will be necessary to have something more than just 90 minutes to knock down ever more entrenched positions, and to attract the few undecided voters who can still decide the future of the nation.