After the presidential debate between former President Donald Trump and Vice-President Kamala Harris on Tuesday, CNN political commentator Scott Jennings pointed out that many of the voters Trump still needed to win over likely did not watch.
Former President George W. Bush appointed Jennings as special assistant to the president and deputy director of political affairs in February 2006.
“I think if you want to hang your hat on something for Trump, it’s the economic numbers,” Jennings started. “I’ve said I thought he won the first 15 minutes; it was largely about the economy. And so there’s still a built-in belief by most voters that it’s been mismanaged by Biden and Harris.”
Jennings’ claim gains more credence in light of the fact that a CNN poll taken after the debate found that the percentage of voters who thought Trump was more trustworthy on the economy rose; before the debate, he led Harris by 16 points, 53-37%, but after the debate, the difference increased to 20%, 55-35%.
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“And so if you’re Trump, and you’re trying to take something positive out of this, it’s that built-in vibe of ‘they just didn’t do a good job on it,’” Jennings stated. “He had to understand that and not get away from it.”
Then he turned to the prospective voters Trump needed to win over, saying, “Number two, obviously, millions of people watched this. A lot of people didn‘t watch it, and a lot of those people who didn‘t watch it and may see nothing about it are some of the people that Donald Trump‘s campaign needs to turn out. The disengagers, they‘re not going to be persuaded by this. That‘s still a big part of the Trump strategy, and I don‘t think they‘ll be moved.”
During the debate, Trump stated, “We’ve had a terrible economy because inflation has — which is really known as a country buster. It breaks up countries. We have inflation like very few people have ever seen before. Probably the worst in our nation’s history. … Everybody knows I’m an open book. Everybody knows what I’m going to do. Cut taxes very substantially. And create a great economy like I did before. We had the greatest economy.”
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