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The stories that matter on money and politics in the race for the White House
The writer is a contributing columnist, based in Chicago
Over 51mn Americans watched last week’s painful presidential debate — but few chose to do so sitting shoulder to shoulder with their deepest political rivals.
Yet in Kenosha, Wisconsin — one of America’s most narrowly divided counties — 500 Republicans, Democrats and Independents crowded into the pews of a college chapel to watch their candidates bicker. Organisers said it was the largest cross-party debate-watch party in the US.
“Reds” (Republicans) and “blues” (Democrats), who normally find little common ground on issues from gun rights to gender identity, came together to agree that the debate was a pitiful display of American political dysfunction. They mostly laughed and sighed in unison. Reds and blues alike snickered when former president Donald Trump responded to a moment of incoherence from President Joe Biden by saying “I really don’t know what he said at the end of that sentence”. There was ridicule from both sides when the two men began sparring over their golf handicaps.
“Whoever you think won this debate, democracy lost,” complained Sheluyang Peng, a young Republican from Brooklyn.
One young Biden voter groaned that “Trump is wiping the floor with (Biden), to the point where I’m thinking of flipping my vote”.
The debate party was held at the annual convention for Braver Angels, a grassroots group that tries to get Americans talking to each other across the political gulf.
Several partygoers spoke of the comfort of watching the debate together: “what I saw tonight, watching all of us watch together, was the temperature go down,” said Daphne Burt, a Democrat from Massachusetts.
Brooks Hilliard, 77, an independent who leans Democrat, and Harry Heintzelman, 73, who calls himself a “life-long traditional Republican” watched the debate together as a red-blue pair. “Biden had one job to do, and that was to show that he is not senile. He didn’t do it,” said Hilliard — who is exactly the kind of moderate voter Biden needs to keep.
Heintzelman — exactly the kind of moderate Republican Biden needs to attract — says “everybody thought Trump was going to be a jerk, but he wasn’t”. Hilliard chimes in: “Well he was a jerk, but not as jerky as I would have expected”.
Despite this, both men said they plan to vote for Biden. Heintzelman defended his choice by saying the Biden camp has “a slightly longer bench of competent people”.
Will the debate affect the election outcome? Charles Franklin, director of the Marquette Law School Poll in Wisconsin, tells me Biden “already had a problem with people being unenthusiastic about him”.
The latest Wisconsin poll put the two candidates in a dead heat before the debate. It is so close that Brett O’Donnell, Republican strategist and debate coach, told me “if a few thousand people decide not to show up for Joe Biden, that could swing the election”.
Philippe Reines, who helped prepare Hillary Clinton for her debates with Trump in 2016, says some Trump supporters wavered when he became a convicted felon, and “were theoretically gettable” for Biden. However, this opportunity came and went on debate night. There is still time to change, he says “but the real opportunity cost is if the Democrats get bogged down in worry and don’t fight”.
Still, if Biden’s bungles weren’t enough to dissuade Heintzelman and Hilliard — hardly the most committed Democratic voters — will his performance really lose him the election? “Debates don’t move votes, but they can change the narrative for the following days or weeks, and that can impact fundraising,” says Aaron Kall, director of debate at the University of Michigan.
Back in Kenosha, the Braver Angels moderator is asking reds and blues what their candidate could have done differently. “Duct tape”, says Heintzelman, to a guffaw from Hilliard. They’ll go on building friendships across the political divide — whatever mess their leaders are making of American politics.