Quote:
Originally Posted by Senator Clay Davis
The debates are kinda irrelevant with Trump. It was universally viewed that Trump lost all of them and came off as a creep several times, but it didn't matter obviously.
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I don't think they are totally irrelevant, as there are a lot of people who didn't like Trump in the debates last time, and then eventually decided they couldn't stomach voting for Hillary either and chose to simply not vote. Reinforcing that Trump is still unqualified and uninformed (despite being the incumbent) is important. The people who voted for Trump despite his awful debates will mostly still vote for him, but it's the 2016 non-voters you need to reach during the debate.
I'm concerned there's too many ways that someone can talk themselves out of voting for Bernie and simply not vote. I think he can win, but he makes it tougher than it needs to be. I don't think Warren has a chance right now based on the polling (unless Biden drops out before Super Tuesday, which would really open things up), but I think she would have fairly easily captured pretty-much everyone who voted for Clinton, some Trump voters who were drawn in by the outsider populist message and now see him as a supporter of 'swamp' politics, and a lot of people who didn't vote and regretted it, plus the majority of young, first-time-eligible voters. There will be some moderates who won't be able to buy into the most progressive candidate possible in Sanders, but would have bought into 'progressive, but not as progressive as Sanders'.