Biased ABC News lost the debate

OPINION:

The big loser in Tuesday’s presidential debate was ABC News.

The moderators’ dishonesty and bias set records. Virtually everyone recognized what they were doing. Ultimately, it helped former President Donald Trump and hurt Vice President Kamala Harris.

The so-called fact-checking was atrocious. For example, the moderators asserted that Mr. Trump’s concern about babies being allowed to die after birth was wrong. Yet at least eight babies have been allowed to die in Minnesota under Gov. Tim Walz, Ms. Harris’ running mate, after attempted abortions. The ABC fact-check was simply a lie.

During the debate, anger about ABC’s partisanship was expressed in posts on X.

As for the two presidential candidates, Ms. Harris was better prepared than most Republicans expected. In some cases, her answers were so clearly memorized that they gave the impression that she might have seen the questions in advance.

By contrast, Mr. Trump found himself in a three-on-one debate in which the two moderators were clearly pro-Harris in the topics they chose and the one-sided and inaccurate fact-checking. Despite that disadvantage, Mr. Trump avoided blowing up in the way Democrats had hoped, and he delivered every major policy message defining Ms. Harris as an incompetent radical.

The analysis of the debate will show an enormous gap between the elites, who will hail Ms. Harris as the winner, and the American people, who think Mr. Trump won the biased debate despite everything.

This reminded me of the first presidential debate of Mr. Trump’s 2016 candidacy. He got into an argument with then-Fox News host Megyn Kelly, and the elites concluded that Mr. Trump had lost the debate. Yet that evening, poll after poll showed that 70% of voters thought Mr. Trump had won despite the argument. As my wife, Callista, and I watched the coverage, we thought something profound was happening. The gap between the American people’s views and those of the elites had grown farther apart. I suspect that the gap has only widened since then.

As the elites lavish praise on Ms. Harris for a performance in which she had two active allies at ABC helping her, consider the following overnight polls:

Before the debate, Trafalgar/Insider Advantage’s poll had Mr. Trump and Ms. Harris tied at 47% of voters. After the debate, they were tied at 48%.

At the time of this writing, 75% of respondents to C-SPAN’s survey on X thought Mr. Trump had won the debate, while only 25% thought Ms. Harris had won. There were 195,000 votes and 13 hours left on the poll.

The Democracy Institute poll showed Mr. Trump won with 45% support to Ms. Harris’ 34% — and 27% were more likely to vote for Mr. Trump after the debate, while 24% were more likely to vote for Ms. Harris post-debate.

According to the Independent, a CNN snap poll, which was slightly more favorable to Ms. Harris, nevertheless noted that “55 percent of voters said Trump would handle the economy better than Harris, while 35 percent said the reverse — a 20-point margin slightly wider than prior to the debate.“

As might be expected, The Washington Post asked 25 swing state voters, and they were overwhelmingly favorable to Ms. Harris (23% to 2%).

On the other side of the spectrum, Newsmax asked its conservative viewers who won, and got 93% for Mr. Trump and 6% for Ms. Harris.

I was reminded of a USA Today headline I saw in late October 1994. I saw it as I walked into a radio station interview in Boise, Idaho, to talk about the Contract with America for an hour. It read something like “Democrats Gaining in House Elections.”

I spent the entire interview worried about the headline. When I had time to read the article, I found that Democrats were gaining among the people who were least likely to vote. The Republican margin was growing among likely voters. This embedded bias has only grown in 30 years.

So it’s no surprise that in the three-on-one debate, with the moderators lying about facts and rigging the questions to Mr. Trump’s disadvantage, Ms. Harris did better than Republicans had hoped. But her radical record and performance failures on the economy and the border also got through — despite ABC’s effort to help her.

My guess is that Mr. Trump will start pulling away in the battleground states.

The truth will sink in despite the media’s effort to elect Ms. Harris.

• For more commentary from Newt Gingrich, visit Gingrich360.com. And subscribe to the “Newt’s World” podcast.