What a difference a debate makes

Less than three months ago, President Joe Biden — you remember him, right? — stepped down from his bid for a second term and threw his support behind Democratic nominee Vice President Kamala Harris, radically redefining this fall’s presidential race.

Just before that happened, we were beginning to write this month’s cover story about the race, which at that time was shaping up to be a rematch between the oldest U.S. presidential candidates in history — less the Thrilla in Manila and more the Scuffle over the Scooters.

What a difference a debate makes.

Let’s not kid ourselves: None of the Trump-Biden debates in 2020 or 2024 were exactly Lincoln-Douglas affairs. It’s been quite a while since presidential debates were more about substance than soundbites and scoring points. But what the June 27 debate did do was illuminate the toll that age has taken on Biden, sparking efforts from within the Democratic Party’s most powerful players to seek his graceful exit from the campaign.

Biden’s debate performance was “the worst performance ever by a major party candidate in a general election presidential debate,” opined University of Virginia political sage Larry Sabato, though he was quick to qualify that didn’t “necessarily mean Trump turned in a good performance.”

Although Virginia was still trending blue, Biden was continuing to lose ground before Harris, 22 years his junior, took his place.

And then, on Sept. 10, following the first — and likely only — Trump-Harris debate, Trump’s campaign appeared to be going to the dogs. And cats.

The average American voter might not be able to remember exactly what the candidates said about abortion or supporting Ukraine, but they’ll likely remember this Trump quote about Haitian immigrants in Ohio: “In Springfield, they’re eating the dogs. The people that came in, they’re eating the cats. They’re eating — they’re eating the pets of the people that live there.”

ABC News debate moderators were quick to point out that Springfield city officials say there’s no factual basis for the outré allegations, which, as it turns out, were based on a Facebook post about a rumor from a friend of a friend of the poster’s neighbor’s daughter. The person who wrote the original Facebook post has since disavowed it, but that hasn’t stopped Trump and his running mate, U.S. Sen. JD Vance of Ohio, from continuing to insist that it’s true, prompting everything from silly memes to school bomb threats.

Here in Virginia, the presidential race is a high-stakes matter, with the careers of tens of thousands of Virginian federal workers potentially on the line, along with another trade war with China and the future of renewable energy projects such as Dominion Energy’s offshore wind farms. Read more about what the Trump and Harris campaigns are saying about key issues of importance to Virginia, as well as the latest on this year’s congressional races, in our October cover story by freelance writer Mason Adams.

But lest you take the wrong message from this short column, consider this: After 2016, it’s probably best not to trust polls. The smart money would never rule out former President Donald J. Trump and his loyal base — just ask Franklin County entrepreneur Whitey Taylor, whose Trump Town store you can read about on our StartVirginia page this month. Housed in a former Boones Mill church with a giant Donald Trump standing next to its entrance, Trump Town draws MAGA merch buyers from far and wide. And Taylor expects he’ll still be selling Trump ballcaps for decades to come.