Debate Offered Viewers a Gut Sense, but Not Much Policy: Debate Expert

Following last night's debate, how did the two candidates do? We're joined next by a debating expert for his insights. Aaron Call is Director of Debate for the University of Michigan's Debate Program. Aaron, good to have you with us. In your opinion- Great to be back. Yeah, great to have you here. Was there a winner last night, do you think? Yeah, I think that Kamala Harris, if I had to assign one, had the better overall performance given this is her first presidential debate ever. Donald Trump is much more seasoned. This is his seventh. She had much higher stakes coming into the night because she's new to the scene, just entered the campaign in July. It's not as defined. Voters said that they wanted to learn more about her background and her policies. So she had a higher degree of difficulty and I thought delivered in the preparation that she did coming in really showed in a few key exchanges over the evening. So with that said, do you think the public won? I think the public, they remain. Those that are still undecided afterwards, I'm just not sure the debate will move the needle much. Most of the people that tune in are partisans and they're rooting on their candidate. There's such a small number of those that could change their core political beliefs off a 90-minute debate, but it could provide momentum. The media will cover this and it'll frame different cycles in the next eight weeks heading into the debate. Fundraising, it sounds like they raised tens of millions of dollars last night, getting a high-profile endorsement at the conclusion of the debate. So a combination of all those cumulative factors could provide some momentum, but not just a 90-minute performance. Did the public get what they needed to make an informed decision at this point? Probably not on policy and substance. We had a little discussion on child tax credits and housing policy and on the issues of abortion and immigration, but those are just soundbites and there wasn't enough time or follow-up surrounding it. I thought these debates, what you get more of, it's of do these debaters have what it takes to go toe-to-toe with leaders of foreign countries? Do you see them as commander-in-chief, presidential material? If there's an emergency, do they have the temperament, the judgment, the information processing to handle that? So more of kind of just a gut sense as opposed to really nuanced policy issues on the economy and inflation. There are other venues for that, town halls and press conferences, but debates just show off a very unique skill set about whether the voters feel comfortable and they can see them plausibly being president for the next four years. And at least it gives you a nice little insight into that. Certainly people will be weighing their gut sense as well after this, as you mentioned. But Trump this morning is saying that he felt that the moderators were not adequately fact checking Harris. How key of a role does the moderator play in debates like this and in terms of the dynamics and how do you think they did? They're integral into the outcome of these debates and both campaigns have to agree on both the networks and the moderators are going to do it. So they did have buy-in before the debate. This was run much differently than the CNN debate. There were fact checking mostly against Trump and much sharper questions and they focused on some different issues than we did in June. But it's a different race and a different candidate has emerged since then. I can see his frustrations. There is fact checking. You want that to be balanced in terms of number by both candidates. We haven't seen fact checking in many years or cycles. So that was unexpected. And some questions were maybe a little more favorable at certain times to Harris and came at good times provider with momentum. A lot of it's just kind of luck of the draw and sometimes you need luck and good fortune to go your way and Kamala Harris had a little bit of that. But I don't think it was any kind of orchestrated campaign against him. He seemed to have a good relationship with the moderators and had been in events with them previously. But anytime you don't do well in debate, you definitely want to put some blame with the moderators. He started working the refs even before the debate started because you're looking for kind of external forces to blame. So it doesn't all come from your own performance or preparation. Aaron, how does this debate compared to game changing debates of the past? You know, Kennedy and Nixon, Reagan and Carter. Yeah, I just think that the country is so polarized and people are kind of in their corners. I don't know that we'll ever have those debates again. We have very impactful debates. And, you know, there were watched in more impactful many years ago because there were only a few television channels. People didn't have other options and social media. I assume, though, this will still do a big number and it's not going to move the needle and move millions of votes. But elections have been so razor close in 2016 and 20. And this one right now is basically about 50, 50, a handful of states, thousands, tens of thousands of votes to determine it. So it doesn't need to move much for that to be to make a big difference. And there clearly are some people that are still undecided. The debate won't seal the deal for them, but at least they may look at the other candidates again, give another chance to do a little additional research by themselves. So at least provides them a good platform to do some additional work to get the information they do need to make a very important choice. And if there is another debate, would you like to see anything different in the way the next run is run? And what would be best for the public? Now, I like these no live audience and the muting of the microphones. I think that's allowed for better debates, more substantive issues, makes it easier on the moderators. You know, if networks now do control the debates, I'd like to see some variety there. So we've had CNN and ABC. So having a debate with maybe NBC or Fox and CBS has a vice presidential debate gives us different questions, moderators. And so that kind of variety would be good to continue. All right. Thank you so much for your time, Aaron. Good to speak with you. You as well. Anytime.