Focus groups confirm what seems fairly obvious...

Harris may have won on style, but lacked substance to convince undecideds

Red State has a bit on the CBS focus group which seemed in line with a couple of other focus groups I was reading through. The CBS focus group had five people, three of which thought Harris won the debate in general and two thought Trump won the debate due to the fact he explained policy (which Harris certainly did not).

However, even if the question about a debate win went to Harris, at least one of those who suggested she won on style, agreed that Donald Trump's closing statement was entirely true and that he still had questions about Harris and what she would do as President. In other words, in this particular focus group two of the undecideds will be voting for Trump because he talked about policy, while we are unsure how many of those who thought Harris won on style are going to vote for her because of it.

Despite being an previously unpopular politician, the total tongue bathing of Harris by our media has turned her into someone who Americans suddenly believes is smart and capable, in spite of no tangible reason to believe so.

My belief going into the debate was Trump had an opportunity to make Harris look unserious. Perhaps even get under her skin, make her think on her feet, and trip her up. But to the degree that Trump was actually able to undermine this media adoration is where he fell woefully short. Instead Trump let Harris get under his skin. That being said, if the public already believes she is smart and capable, then the debate would only be confirming what those people already believe. So at this point they are either voting for her already or they are looking for more.

So if the true issue for certain undecided voters is policy and they are really truly looking for more, then simply being able to memorize your lines for the debate didn't likely move those voters. Especially when she didn't get specific about policy. She played the style over substance angle in this debate, just as she has with the entire campaign. Does it matter if it is done well or poorly if people are looking for more?

Let's be honest. Trump had the momentum and a chance to really start knocking some nails into the Harris campaign coffin. He didn't get that done last night. Nope, it didn't help that he was debating the moderators, the fact checkers, and Harris, but he still missed some obvious opportunities to do better. It sounds like in typical Donald fashion, he underprepared and was mainly just winging it. But at the end of the day, Harris probably had a bigger hill to climb with explaining to America what she would do as President other than stand up for unfettered access to abortion. I think in those regards she spent the debate climbing the same hill she has been climbing since her campaign started, still ignoring what she needed to do on policy.