There was some good news for Trump though—many of his campaign’s points of attack against Harris and the Biden administration appeared to connect with voters, with 47 percent saying he prioritizes a good climate for business (compared to 37 percent for Harris) and 43 percent saying he would prioritize lowering the cost of household goods (compared to only 36 percent for the Democratic nominee).
Harris needs to speak at a fourth grade level without sounding condescending. Are people even listening, or are they dumb? It’s probably the latter, but it’s not their fault they’re dumb. There are well-oiled propaganda machines making fools of us all.
Also, I think Trump benefits from the assumptions that low information voters have about Republicans, and their tendency to blame the incumbent party for anything bad that happens, particularly in the economy. Harris laying out specific policies to help families, small businesses etc. is just in one ear and out the other, but Trump being vaguely pro-business in any way reinforces their biases.
And to make matters worse, most people aren’t all that rational. They aren’t paying close attention to what’s being said and analyzing it coldly and logically. Hell, they may not even be paying attention, and just check in every once in a while. This also benefits Trump because his strategy is to spew lies, false promises and emotionally charged rhetoric which is most effective on the uninformed and unthinking members of the audience.
That said, there’s just always going to be 20% of the people who would say Trump was better in every way no matter what happened. Some of that is because they are treating every question as a proxy for Trump vs Harris/Democrats/Commies/Whatever, and part of this is because they are so far gone that they can only interpret the debate through a right wing lens that will uncritically accept whatever Trump says, and which rejects any good point Harris makes.