Yes, Trump Won the Debate

Never before have we seen a clearer example of a political Rorschach test than the first, and potentially only, debate between former President Donald Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris.

Depending on who you ask, this was either Trump’s worst debate performance of all time, on par with the chaotic first debate with Joe Biden in 2020, or his greatest victory since the second debate with Hillary Clinton, when he uttered the famous mic-drop line of “Because you’d be in jail.”

But despite these two wildly different perspectives from across the conservative spectrum, Trump’s Law remains consistent: Despite the odds, and in defiance of most political norms, he managed to once again claim victory where any other Republican would have found defeat.

The Body Language Body Slam

The differences between President Trump and Kamala were so plain that a picture was painted before either of them even took their podiums. At the beginning, President Trump went straight for his podium while Kamala attempted to approach him for a greeting. By the time she reached his podium and extended her hand, he was towering over her, and the microphone picked up her very awkward introduction as she simply said “…Kamala Harris.” In what she clearly had anticipated would be a power move by initiating the introduction, she instead made herself look small and inferior next to the former president.

Then, as they took their places at the podiums and the split-screen began, their faces could not have been more different. While President Trump remained calm and relaxed, Harris had a bizarre, wide-eyed pout that almost made it look like she was about to burst out crying at any moment, clearly overcome by extreme nervousness.

Then, as the exchanges began, there were several clear tells in their respective body language. Whenever Kamala spoke, Trump mostly kept looking forward, most likely at the moderators, but still clearly listening and reacting to what she had to say. When Trump spoke, however, Kamala always turned her head sharply to the side to look directly at him. This silently conveyed that there was only one person who was truly dominating the room with his presence.

It had echoes of the infamous second debate in the 2016 cycle, a town hall event where the candidates had stools to sit on when they weren’t speaking. A lesser-known but still memorable detail of that particular debate was that, whenever Trump spoke, Hillary Clinton would sit down at her stool and maybe take a sip of water. But Trump never once sat down, even when she spoke; he was always standing, often looming in the background behind her, staying within the camera’s view even when he was not the focus. His presence, quite literally, was felt in every second of the debate. It was the same in this exchange.

In fact, body language can be used to pinpoint the exact moment that Kamala lost her cool and dropped the “joyous” persona. Early in the debate, when President Trump explicitly called her a Marxist and also pointed out that her father was a Marxist professor, Kamala could be seen awkwardly resting her chin on the back of her hand. Alongside actively putting your hand on your face, there is no greater tell of severe discomfort, annoyance, or anger than this gesture. From that moment on, Kamala never regained her composure and let her notoriously “bossy” side come out for the whole world to see.

Energy vs. Emptiness

Once the two candidates actually started speaking, things only got even better for the former president and worse for the vice president.

President Trump started off rather calm and collected, in a manner reminiscent of how he handled the historic debate against Joe Biden just several months prior. But it didn’t take long for major issues to be brought up, and with them came a renewed sense of passion from the 45th president.

When President Trump addressed his signature issues, including the immigration crisis, the economic decline, and foreign policy disasters, there was a clear fire in his voice. He was loud, but not too over-the-top. It was not impotent fury but righteous indignation.

When he condemned the Biden-Harris Administration for letting in millions of illegal aliens—some of whom have now resorted to eating people’s pets in Springfield, Ohio—or when he declared that our country as we know it is “dying,” he spoke with the same passion that you would hear from a factory worker who was just laid off or a citizen who just lost a relative to an illegal alien’s crime. He did not address such crises with a measured tone like an out-of-touch politician would; he spoke with raw anger like an average, down-on-their-luck American would.

By contrast, Kamala stuck to her very rehearsed tone, hardly ever raising her voice despite her clear desire to do so. When the very first question out the gate was simply the all-too-familiar inquiry of “Are Americans better off now than they were four years ago?” she had absolutely no response and instead vaguely hinted at “having a plan.”

Between the aforementioned body language issues and the unexpected broadside of the hard first question, Kamala clearly felt more nervous than ever before; this was reflected in the fact that, for about the first 30 minutes of the debate, she could be heard audibly, constantly, smacking her lips. The occasional stutter, the deer-in-headlights look, and the empty platitudes all showed that, even as she tried her hardest to stick to the focus group-tested script, she still knew that she was failing.

Commanding the Room, Controlling the Narrative

The last debate was proof that President Trump could work just fine with the rule of the microphone being muted whenever he was not speaking; if anything, this format actually helped him as he watched the now long-forgotten Joe Biden implode in real-time.

This debate was proof that Trump, and only Trump, could bulldoze his way right through even those rules.

On multiple occasions throughout the night, whenever Harris made another cheap or false attack against President Trump, the former president could be heard, despite being muffled, asking to respond. Even when the moderators tried to move the conversation along to another topic, he remained steadfast in his determination to be heard.

And every single time, without fail, ABC relented and unmuted his microphone.

By contrast, there were several moments where Kamala could be heard feebly trying to respond to the former president, only to remain helplessly on mute.

It wasn’t just a matter of President Trump having to go up against two biased moderators in addition to his actual opponent; he also had to square up against ABC’s draconian rules. And on that front too, he emerged victorious.

Because of this effortless dominance over the technical and logistical aspects of the debate, so too was President Trump able to retain control over the narratives as the night went on.

When they asked him about January 6, he pointed to the as-yet-unprosecuted Black Lives Matter riots. When he was asked about a hypothetical abortion ban, he fired right back with a question about the Democrats’ support for post-birth abortions. When they tried to claim violent crime has gone down in recent years, he shot right back by pointing out the rise in crime committed by illegal aliens.

Each and every attack, he parried flawlessly, pivoting sharply away from issues that could be used to hurt him and instead regaining his dominance in the issues that are most beneficial to his campaign. Any old politician can deflect, as Kamala did many times; only a true master of rhetoric like Donald Trump can successfully pivot.

The Debate That Doesn’t, and Does, Matter

In the end, it was always inevitable that the mainstream media would run cover for Kamala Harris regardless of the actual outcome of the debate, insisting that she won and established her superiority as a woman. Naturally, biased polls from the likes of CNN would rush to declare her the victor.

But what do the real polls say? The consensus is that, regardless of what most people think of the debate, the needle hasn’t really moved in either direction, as neither side’s base was swayed one way or the other.

The Trafalgar Group, one of the most accurate pollsters in both the 2016 and 2020 elections, showcased this trend in their survey before and after the debate: Prior to the debate, the two candidates were in a statistical tie, at 47% each, with 2% of voters choosing third-party candidates and 4% remaining undecided. Subsequently, 55% of respondents felt Kamala won the debate, while 43% said Trump was the winner, and the remaining 2% said it was a tie.

But then, in the post-debate poll asking respondents who they will support, the two candidates gained one point each, for yet another statistical tie: 48% each, now with just 1% of respondents still preferring a third party and 3% undecided.

A similar finding was documented in the New York Post’s post-debate poll. Despite 50% believing that Kamala was the winner, 29% saying Trump won, and 13% remaining undecided, Kamala maintained a mere 3-point lead in the question of who voters will support, with 50% to Trump’s 47%. This actually marked a decrease of 1% for Kamala compared to the Post’s previous poll.

But perhaps the most important polls after the debate are the ones concerning voters in the middle, that ever-elusive bloc that both parties are always chasing. And the earliest results confirm that it was, indeed, a knockout victory for Trump.

Reuters conducted a test with a focus group before and after the debate, consisting of 10 undecided voters. After the debate, 6 out of the 10 undecideds declared that they would either be voting for Trump or were leaning towards Trump; just three said they lean towards Kamala after the debate, while the tenth undecided voter remained unsure of whom they would support.

This aligns with what even ABC had been tracking over the course of the debate, with regard to the responses by Republicans, Democrats, and independent voters in real-time. On many of the key issues, from illegal immigration to Kamala Harris being part of the incumbent administration—and thus not a true agent of change as she claims to be—independent voter sentiment matched Republican sentiment in agreeing with President Trump, while Democrats remained alone in their opposition to his remarks.

Winning Both Debates

Understanding the wide discrepancy in responses from conservatives to the Trump/Kamala debate is simply a matter of understanding the audience to which Trump was speaking that night.

Those who believe that he lost, turning in one of the worst debate performances ever, are generally of the persuasion that he must focus his attention on independents and moderate voters, assuming that he already has the support of his base locked up. By contrast, those who believe he won the night believe that he already has strong support amongst independents and thus should focus on energizing and turning out his base.

The truth of the matter, however, is that both of these takes are wrong. They are wrong because they operate under a false dichotomy, which suggests that Trump can only have one or the other and must sacrifice one to gain one.

What the debate proved is that it is entirely possible to do both. And once again, Donald Trump did just that in a masterful way that no other Republican could possibly hope to replicate.

His passion as he spoke conveyed energy and enthusiasm to his base while simultaneously communicating to independents that he has the desire to fix the problems with our country today. His powering through the muted mics showed defiance to his base and demonstrated command and control to independents in search of a leader who could do just that. And all of the issues that fire up his base are the same issues that consistently rank as top concerns for independents.

Once all the noise of the professional pundit class and perpetual pearl-clutchers is ignored, it becomes clear that the winner of this debate was Donald Trump. At best, he ran away with independent voters while simultaneously energizing his own base like never before; at the least, he fought the debate against Kamala, the moderators, and the microphones to a draw in an impressive 4 vs. 1 battle; and given that the momentum has been on his side for the last few weeks, a draw is still a net win for the 45th president.

Now, on to November.