Harry Enten on how Harris’ debate showing may affect Trump’s chances

I think the saying goes debates don't win elections necessarily. Right. Both the Trump and Harris campaigns are spinning the debate as a win for their candidates. We wanted to know what debate watchers thought. CNN senior data reporter Harry Enten is here with a brand new suit. By the way, are you also running the numbers? That's a new one. I know I'm right. Right. It's a ten. I haven't worn this in years. I don't know if it's brand new, but it's brand new for you. And I want to mention suit, by the way, in a little bit. I mean, there we go. We're matching. All right, what did you find here as far as how this was received? Yeah, I'm just going to use a scientific term and that is that the vice president crushed Donald Trump. All right. So how did the vice president how much did she crush him by look at this first debate winner margins. Look at that. She won by a 26 point margin, nearly matching Trump's margin over Biden back in June when he won by 34 points, very similar to Joe Biden's margin of over Donald Trump back in 2020, of 32 points, and significantly higher than the 2016 margin that Hillary Clinton had over Donald Trump in their first debate. Just 13 points. But the bottom line here is debate watchers. And they actually leaned a little bit more Republican than the nation as a whole believe that Kamala Harris easily, easily won this debate. Again, the scientific term is she crushed former President Donald Trump. All right. Will we see, though, a change in the polls, a rise or a bump for Harris? I think that the most likely scenario is that you will, in fact, see a rise in the polls. Why take a look at the last four times we had a first debate and look at those winners. Did they see a rise in the polls? Yes. Mitt Romney in 20 2012, Hillary Clinton 2016, Joe Biden in 2020 and Donald Trump earlier this year. They all saw rises in the polls of two points or more. And given how close this race is nationally, given how close it is in the swing states, do not be surprised if Kamala Harris jumps out to a lead nationally. And don't be surprised if she jumps up to a slight, small lead in those key battleground states. It should still probably be a close race based upon history, but no doubt, at least based upon history. We should expect Kamala Harris to receive a polling bump and a race as tight as this one. That would certainly be welcomed. Okay, so the big question is, historically, what does this all mean for the potential of winning in November? Because there have been debates that people have lost, but they've won the election. Yeah. There you go. That's the key question Sarah side here. You may receive a momentary polling bump, but does that mean you're going to go on and win the election? Not necessarily, because the fact is the election's all away in November and by my calendar, we're still in September. And look at that. Lost the first debate, first debate, but won the election. George W Bush in 2004 lost that first debate to John Kerry. He won in the fall. How about Barack Obama? We mentioned Mitt Romney earlier. He won. Mitt Romney won that first debate, but Barack Obama won in the fall. And of course, Donald Trump in 2016, he lost that first debate to Hillary Clinton. But he went on to win in the fall. So the bottom line is, yes, last night was good news for Kamala Harris. She won that debate in the minds of debate watchers. Yes, based upon history, she should see a polling bump. But that doesn't necessarily mean that you'll win come November. There's another big difference here, whether or not there's going to be a second debate. We heard Donald Trump early this morning saying that he doesn't think there needs to be one, because he felt he won decisively. That is not what the voters that you looked at said, with us. Now, CNN's even weekend and Elena Treen, they are in Philadelphia. The dust still settling at the debate. So, Eva, what are you hearing from the Harris team this morning? Well, John, bottom line, they believed it was a mission accomplished. They set out to characterize the former president as fundamentally unserious, as more caught up in his own grievances than the concerns of everyday Americans, and is easily susceptible to being needled on trivial matters like crowd sizes, on conspiracy theories like maligning immigrants for eating pence. And in addition to this, they also believe that the vice president commanded the stage and had a good mastery of the issues when it came to foreign policy, when it came to the economy, and especially when it came to reproductive rights, that she illustrated real compassion. Let's listen. You want to talk about this is what people wanted, pregnant women who want to carry a pregnancy to term, suffering from a miscarriage, being denied care in an emergency room because the health care providers are afraid they might go to jail. And she's bleeding out in a car in the parking lot. She didn't. More that I absolutely support reinstating the protections of Roe v Wade. And as you rightly mentioned, nowhere in America is a woman carrying a pregnancy to term. And and in asking for an abortion, that is not happening. It's insulting to the women of America. And though you could see campaign aides with a little pep in their step last night in the spin room, so happy about the debate that they're calling for another one. They are under no illusion, Sarah and John, that the next couple of weeks are going to be easy. They still view themselves as the underdogs and know that there is going to be a difficult road ahead. That is why they are already building out the week with the vice president campaigning both here in Pennsylvania and in North Carolina, and that road to the election getting shorter and shorter. We are less than two months away. I want to talk to you, Elena, about what Donald Trump is saying now. He said this morning he was on Fox, saying that he doesn't need to debate again because in his mind he won. Which, as you have noted, John, that that is not what the majority of folks, including voters, have been saying. But how does his campaign think that he did last night? Well, between his campaign, as well as many Republicans I spoke with last night, I was texting with many of them throughout the debate. I was in the spin room talking to his advisers. There's a couple of things I think there's no question that people were very frustrated with his missed opportunities, particularly on some of Harris's answers on the economy, on her changing her positions. They believe that that was an opportunity for Donald Trump to really set his own message, to talk about the key issues they believe voters care about, specifically the economy and immigration. Instead, on many of those answers, he took the bait from Harris and turned the entire conversation into an airing of grievances. I'm talking about bizarre things like, migrants eating pets, as Eva pointed out something, of course, that we know is false and has been debunked. there was some frustration around that. Now, I did talk to some people as well who acknowledge Republicans acknowledge that he fell for, the goading that Harris led him down. And remember, this was a key thing in my conversations with senior Trump advisers leading up to last night that they had advised Donald Trump on. This was the key concern, they said, even more than the substance on the issues they were concerned about Donald Trump's tone and his temperament and going off, onto these different tyrants, really about, random things that didn't relate to his own messaging. And that's kind of what we saw last night. It appears that they were not successful in that. However, a key claim that they continue to make and Donald Trump made this this morning is that the moderators were biased against Donald Trump, that it was a three on one debate, although I'd argue no. We know that often when you're attacking the refs, you're often on the losing side. Sarah. John, I think is a good point. Lamestream even the. Ken, thank you both so much. Live from the City of Brotherly Love.