Top pollster predicts Donald Trump’s debate performance lost him the election

Donald Trump’s poor performance in yesterday’s debate may have even worse consequences than he fears, a top conservative pollster says.

Donald Trump’s performance in yesterday’s presidential debate against Kamala Harris was so damaging that it could cost him the election, according to a leading conservative pollster.

The Republican political consultant Frank Luntz, best known for running focus groups with undecided voters, was interviewed by British broadcaster Piers Morgan today and delivered a withering assessment of Mr Trump’s struggles on the debate stage.

“Do you think Kamala won? And does that mean she may now win the election?” Mr Morgan asked him.

“I think more accurate is that Donald Trump lost. This is not the worst debate performance I’ve seen in my career, but it’s very close to it,” Mr Luntz said.

Donald Trump during the debate. Picture: Saul Loeb/AFP

“The conversations about people eating dogs and cats. Calling the leader of Hungary one of the greatest world leaders. Repeatedly missing the opportunity to focus on inflation. And the complete inability to present his point of view without completely tearing into her.

“It was a pretty negative performance. Pretty pessimistic, cynical, contemptuous. And I think that this will cost him – yes. I’m trying to decide if I want to go on record, and the answer is yes. I think that he loses because of this debate performance.”

The Prime Minister of Hungary, Viktor Orban, has been criticised among his European neighbours for sympathising with Russia and shifting his nation towards authoritarianism. He has, for example, undermined the independence of Hungary’s court system.

During the debate, Mr Trump cited him as an example of a “smart” and “respected” leader.

Pollster Frank Luntz tells Piers Morgan he thinks Donald Trump's debate against Kamala Harris has cost him the election 👇

📺 https://t.co/G8Le89wHyV@piersmorgan | @FrankLuntzpic.twitter.com/khUU8vOMKn

— Piers Morgan Uncensored (@PiersUncensored) September 11, 2024

Mr Luntz also spoke to the BBC and delivered a similar assessment of the debate.

“Let me be precise. It’s not that Harris won, it’s that Donald Trump lost,” he reiterated.

“On several occasions, he spoke with language, and with ideas, that people watching were quite simply shocked.

“It was not a good night for him. He was off-message.”

He suggested Mr Trump was the first candidate on a presidential ticket since the Republican vice presidential nominee in 2008, Sarah Palin, for whom it was true that “the more they talk, the more they lose”.

“I was looking at his eyes, and watching his facial expressions, and I started to wonder what’s going on. Just as we saw Biden (in June’s debate), who’s a shell of who he used to be, you’re looking at Trump who is clearly unhinged,” Mr Luntz argued.

“He lost the sense of control early in the debate, and Harris baited him repeatedly, and he fell for it. This was not Donald Trump’s finest hour.”

Republican political consultant Frank Luntz. Picture: Paul Miller/Bloomberg via Getty Images

Mr Luntz did stress that Ms Harris “hasn’t closed the deal”.

“But the way it works with the remaining undecided voters, this far into a campaign, is that they first have to decide who they’re not voting for, and then they decide who they are voting for. And I believe they decided last night that they’re not voting for Donald Trump,” he said.

“But they’re not defined voters yet. They’re not yet ready to commit themselves to Harris.”

One of the BBC’s hosts asked Mr Luntz, perhaps a little cheekily, who would win the election if it were held “right now”.

“I have no doubt it would be Kamala Harris,” he replied.

“But I do have doubts about whether she is absolutely, positively destined to win.

“It’s not the popular vote that matters, it’s these individual states, and they’re essentially tied in all seven states. She will benefit from (the debate), but not significantly, because there are not enough votes to move over.

“Even with this debate, even with a great convention that she had, the likelihood is that she’ll be ahead by maybe 4 per cent a week from now, when the polling settles down. Guess what? Four points is not enough to guarantee victory.”

We talk about the American presidential election as though it’s one massive vote. It is, in fact, 50 separate smaller votes, one in each of the country’s states.

At present, the system’s nature is such that a Democrat needs to win the popular vote by a fairly comfortable margin to reach the required threshold in the electoral college to become president. If the popular vote ends up tied, or even marginally in Ms Harris’s favour, Mr Trump will almost certainly win.

Kamala Harris on the debate stage. Picture: Saul Loeb/AFP

Debate a ‘train wreck’ for Trump

Mr Luntz was not alone in spreading the doom and gloom for Mr Trump.

Writing for The Wall Street Journal, veteran Republican strategist Karl Rove – who was famously the top political adviser to former president George W. Bush – described the debate as “catastrophic for Trump”, a “train wreck”, and “far worse than anything” his team could have imagined ahead of time.

“As is frequently the case with Mr Trump, he let his emotions get the better of him,” Mr Rove argued.

“He took the bait almost every time she put it on the hook. Rather than dismissing her attacks and launching his strongest counterarguments against her, Mr Trump got furious.

“As her attacks continued, his voice rose. He gripped the podium more often and more firmly. He grimaced and shook his head, at times responding with wild and fanciful rhetoric.

“Mr Trump did a terrible job at his most important task – tying her to President Biden’s failed policies. He did an even worse job prosecuting the argument that she’s a far-left politician out of sync with America’s values.”

Mr Rove stressed that “it matters how debating candidates carry themselves”.

“There, it was no contest,” he said.

“Ms Harris came across as calm, confident, strong and focused on the future. Mr Trump came across as hot, angry and fixated on the past, especially his own.

“Many undecided and swing voters will make up their minds less on any single issue than on their visceral reactions to the candidates. Ms Harris did herself much good with that crowd on Tuesday. Mr Trump didn’t.

“Will this debate have an effect? Yes, though perhaps not as much as Team Harris hopes or as much as Team Trump might fear.

“But there’s no putting lipstick on this pig. Mr Trump was crushed by a woman he previously dismissed as ‘dumb as a rock’. Which raises the question: what does that make him?”

Republican strategist Karl Rove.

‘He has no self-control’

Speaking to The Bulwark, conservative political commentator S.E. Cupp said the debate had shown how easy it was to manipulate Mr Trump.

“Kamala Harris must be feeling what Putin and Kim Jong-un feel, which is like, ‘I can’t believe this guy fell for it. I can’t believe how easily manipulated he was,’” she said.

“She laid out trap after trap after trap. These weren’t well-concealed traps, these were pretty obvious, and he walked into every single one.

“She’s a prosecutor, but she’s not Houdini. There was no magic. She laid a trap, and he walked right into it.

“I think, even for me, having covered him for so long, it was somewhat surprising to see just how easily manipulated he was by her.

“And if you’re a swing state voter who is undecided and you don’t really love either of these people, you just watched that thinking, ‘Man, he’s a sucker.’

“He has no self-control.”

Originally published as Top pollster predicts Donald Trump’s debate performance lost him the election