Hillary Clinton and her allies feel very good about the past week. They should ― but maybe not too good.
Heading into Monday’s debate, Clinton was in deep political trouble. Her lead both nationwide and in key state polls had nearly collapsed. At one point, FiveThirtyEight’s “now-cast,” a projection of what would happen if the election were held today, predicted Donald Trump would win.
And there was no sign of the dynamics changing. She was struggling to break out of a series of negative news stories, while Trump was running a relatively disciplined campaign.
Then came Monday’s debate.
Clinton was upbeat and sharp, while Trump was ill-tempered and erratic. She showed off her best qualifications for office ― her vast knowledge of policy, her ability to think on her feet and her resilience in the face of criticism. He interrupted her constantly and gave answers that at times seemed incoherent.
Clinton also baited Trump into lashing out and expressing his derogatory attitudes about women ― most memorably when he defended calling comedian Rosie O’Donnell a “fat pig” because, he said, “she deserves it and nobody feels sorry for her.” And, of course, Clinton attacked Trump over his past treatment of Alicia Machado, a former Miss Universe whom Trump had fat-shamed.
Few people had heard of Machado before Monday. Now she is a household name ― thanks as much to Trump as to Clinton, since he spent the next few days standing by his prior behavior, attacking Machado on television and eventually issuing a series of middle-of-the-night tweets that captured him at his impulsive, misogynistic worst.
New polling reflects the week’s events. The latest surveys show most Americans believe Clinton won the debate and, more important, her performance in both national and key state surveys has improved. Her odds of winning the election have also increased in each of the major models ― FiveThirtyEight’s, The Upshot’s and that of the Princeton Election Consortium. If the election were held today, she would very likely win.
Still, the polls haven’t moved that dramatically. And if history is a guide, the debate’s effects on public opinion will diminish at least a little, and maybe a lot. The long view of the campaign is that support for Clinton and Trump stays within a fixed range for each candidate, bobbing up and down depending on the latest news and how voters are reacting to it.
You can see it very clearly in the HuffPost polling model, where the good news for Clinton is that her range of support is just a little higher than his. On her worst days, her support in the HuffPost polling average is still a tad stronger than what he gets on his best days. But keep in mind the number of undecided voters, the margin of error in polling and the possibility that his supporters are more enthusiastic than hers. That makes Clinton’s lead anything but safe.
And although Election Day is only five weeks away, Trump has shown an ability to recover from weeks every bit as ugly as this one. In fact, a scenario almost exactly like this one played out in late July, after the Democratic Convention ― when Clinton gave a strong, highly visible public performance and Trump spent the following days relentlessly attacking the family of a fallen Marine.
By early August, Trump’s deficit in the HuffPost model had reached nearly 10 points, Republicans were in near-panic and pundits were declaring the race all but over. Quite obviously it was not.
Trump climbed back into the race for a variety of reasons. Memories of the convention and Trump’s behavior toward the Khan family faded. Clinton went through a series of brutal news cycles over supposed revelations in her e-mail, her “deplorables” comment and her faltering at New York’s Sept. 11 memorial ceremony. At the same time, Trump discovered campaign discipline. He started using a teleprompter and talking about policy ― and he (mostly) managed to avoid saying outrageous things on twitter.
It could all happen again. About 12 hours after Trump’s tweets about Machado early Friday morning, I saw the nominee at a rally in suburban Detroit. And for an hour, anyway, Teleprompter Trump had wrested control of campaign away from Device Donald.
He gave a sharp, focused address that wove his anti-trade and anti-immigration positions seamlessly into his attacks on corruption in media, politics and business ― all of it winding up with an indictment of Clinton. It sounded a lot like the first 10 minutes of Monday’s debate, when Trump was similarly focused and holding his own.
Clinton and her allies have at least some power to stop Trump from regaining the position he’s lost. Specifically, she can use the next few weeks to take care of her unfinished business from Tuesday: persuading voters that she, not Trump, is the one fighting for working- and middle-class Americans.
Clinton has a strong case to make here. She’s the one who’s spent a political lifetime fighting on behalf of children and families ― and she’s proposing policies like a higher minimum wage, more assistance with college and medical expenses and tough regulation on Wall Street that would actually help average Americans gain more economic security.
And Trump? He’s the one with a history of exploiting weak consumers and avoiding taxes ― just as he’s the one proposing policies, including a massive tax cut for the wealthy, that would ultimately undermine the programs on which both middle-class and poor Americans rely.
It’s possible that none of this is necessary, that the damage Trump did to himself this week is enough to stifle his chances at the presidency. Lord knows it should be. The qualities that appear to be suddenly driving voters away from Trump ― the lack of self-control, the unwillingness to prepare for the job, the grotesque attitude towards women ― ought to disqualify Trump from office, full stop.
But nothing about Trump’s recent behavior was surprising. He’s been acting like this for more than a year. If the voters could forget once, they could forget again ― which is why Clinton and her allies should make sure voters have reason to vote for her, and not just against him.
Before You Go
