By On Thursday, Donald Trump appeared to catch the Kamala Harris campaign off guard when he announced that he’d not be doing a second debate with the vice president.
While staunchly defending his performance, the former president dismissed the need for a rematch, confidently asserting that he had already secured a victory.
“We’ve done two debates and because they were successful, there will be no third debate,” Trump said during a rally in Tucson.
Harris, while speaking at a campaign event in Charlotte, proposed a second debate: “I believe we owe it to the voters to have another debate. Because this election and what is at stake could not be more important,” she said.
Although opponents of Trump have tried to spin his refusal to do a second debate as a negative, Mark Halperin, one of the most famous political commentators in the country, remarked that the vice president is begging for a second chance because she failed to in her primary mission during the debate.
The Daily Caller reports that Trump announced on Thursday that he does not intend to participate in another debate with Harris, despite her campaign’s request for an October rematch after their Tuesday showdown. Halperin, on “Wake Up America,” claimed the Harris campaign believes another debate is necessary because she failed to effectively present herself or demonstrate her competence to voters during the initial face-off.
“I think he’s trying to get the debate on friendly terms and see if he can force Kamala Harris, because the dirty little secret is the Harris campaign wants another debate because they think they need it, because she didn’t do a full, adequate job of introducing herself to the country, convincing them that she’s ready to be president and she’s got specific plans,” Halperin said. “These post-debate polls are not of undecided voters. They’re of all voters. And undecided voters are different than all voters. To do a poll of undecided voters, though, is extremely expensive because it costs a lot of money to find undecided voters to poll.”
Halperin pointed to reporting by The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal to suggest that undecided voters “anecdotally” were not “as impressed with Kamala Harris as all the MSNBC anchors were about how she did.” The analyst also said that nobody he has spoken to anticipates a polling shift due to the debate and added Trump should not square off with Harris again if the moderators will be as active against him as they were on ABC News on Tuesday.
Halperin predicted there will be another debate and “the compromise will be they’ll do it on NBC and they’ll try to find people at NBC who aren’t biased.”
Mark Halperin Says ‘Dirty Little Secret’ Is Harris Campaign Pushing For Rematch Because She Didn’t Do Well Enough pic.twitter.com/VNdxOYdWDX
— Daily Caller (@DailyCaller) September 13, 2024
A focus group about the debate put together by Reuters reported that undecided voters were left unconvinced by Harris.
Kamala Harris was widely seen as dominating Tuesday’s presidential debate against Republican former president Donald Trump, but a group of undecided voters remained unconvinced that the Democratic vice president was the better candidate.
Reuters interviewed 10 people who were still unsure how they were going to vote in the Nov. 5 election before they watched the debate. Six said afterward they would now either vote for Trump or were leaning toward backing him. Three said they would now back Harris and one was still unsure how he would vote.
Although the sample size was small, the responses suggested Harris might need to provide more detailed policy proposals to win over voters who have yet to make up their minds.
Five said they found Harris vague during the more than 90-minute debate on how she would improve the U.S. economy and deal with the high cost of living, a top concern for voters.”
The findings from Reuters matched a panel at Fox News revealing that independent voters typically tracked with Republicans during the debate.
“The focus group comprised seven Democrats, five independents and five Republicans, and was represented by blue, yellow and red lines, respectively. When Trump spoke of the rising crime at the hands of illegal immigrants, the yellow line monitoring the independent reaction rose drastically in Trump’s favor, overlapping with the red Republican line.
Lee Carter, pollster and president of Maslansky + Partners, said she was shocked to see independent voters tracking with Republicans so closely on the issue.
From Daily Wire – WATCH: Voters React in Real-Time To Key Moments in Debate.
A focus group that watched former President Donald Trump debate Vice President Kamala Harris on Tuesday
revealed some surprising insights as the candidates touched on key issues in the election.
Lee… pic.twitter.com/EJ4c16g5Z1— Frank (@FrankOPSG) September 12, 2024
‘I was really, really surprised because the intensity of the independent support was there for Donald Trump and I didn’t expect it,’ Carter said Wednesday on ‘The Faulkner Focus.’
‘Independents are tracking very much with Republicans. They’re looking for a couple of things. They’re looking for answers on immigration, they’re looking for answers on the economy. They want to hear that things will get better for them and they also want change from what is happening right now,’ Carter continued. ‘One of the most important things they were looking for last night from Kamala Harris is how are you going to make it different?'”
While focus groups sided with Trump, polling showed that Harris won the debate, potentially showing a divergence between those who definitely watched the debate and those who say they watched the debate or got their news about the debate from the media.
[Read More: Clinton Adviser Says Debate Was Rigged]
