Expectations for Joe Biden in the debate were low. He had only one job: to show the public that he could handle the duties of the presidency at age 81. Biden failed to meet the challenge.
The debate was definitely a big fail for Biden. He looked old. His answers were choppy. He stopped mid-sentence and was often hard to understand.
The debate was meant to be a rare opportunity for the American people to see former Presidents Donald Trump and Biden interact on the same stage. It is part of the job interview process, and their answers and interactions will tell you a lot about how well they can do the job. Each candidate is expected to fact-check the other and hold the other accountable. That's why we have debates.
Biden wasn't up to the task. He struggled with questions about abortion and climate change, two issues Democrats hope will help them retake the House and expand their Senate majority. Even his attacks on Trump seemed lacking his usual wit and charm.
Biden would have been better off refusing to debate. To make matters worse, the debate was called by Biden's team. Putting Biden on that stage was political malfeasance, and these advisors should never be in politics again.
For Trump, the decision to conditionally agree to a CNN debate worked. With his microphone muted, Trump was calm and rational, but the split screen provided a terrible view for Biden. Usually, no one really wins a debate. This time, Trump was the clear winner.
Time will tell if that changes the dynamics of the election. On the electoral front, Trump did little to persuade swing voters. It took him less than 10 minutes to veer off the topic to issues important to his base: the weaponization of the Justice Department and the immigration crisis.
Trump needed to convince voters that Biden needed to be removed from office. Biden did that on his own. Trump's failure was that he didn't pivot to his own vision when Biden failed. That could have been the final nail in Biden's political coffin.
Trump also failed to convince suburban women to vote for him. His biggest hope is that Biden's performance will be so stunning that women in battleground states who have rejected Trump since 2018 will ignore the Access Hollywood tape, Stormy Daniels, Karen McDougal and E. Jean Carroll, and vote for Trump anyway.
The truth is that America lost.
The debate was meant to be a chance for the two presidents to criticize each other's records and lay out their vision for the next four years, but it degenerated into golf handicaps, cognitive tests and a sad, childish exchange of “No, you were the worst president in American history.”
Democrats must make a decision.
Biden's opening remarks set off panic alarms among Democratic leaders across the country, as his performance left Americans questioning whether he could handle the duties of the presidency and sparked debate about invoking the 25th Amendment.
Many Democrats say Trump is an existential threat to democracy. If they truly believe that, they have no choice but to convince Biden to step down or find a way to replace him. If they don't make a change, Trump's path to victory will only get easier.
Matt Wiley is a South Carolina-based Republican political strategist and analyst with more than 25 years of experience working on federal, state and local campaigns.
