APPLETON, WI (WTAQ) — Last night’s presidential debate may have has an impact, according to one local professor.
Arnold Shober, a Government Professor at Lawrence University, said Thursday’s presidential debate was more like how a debate should actually be.
“Viewers really got what debates should be about,” Shober said on WTAQ’s ‘The Morning News with Matt and Earl’. “I think both of them provided information to viewers and listeners of the debate. If only they could all be like this.”
Shober gave particularly praise to President Donald Trump, saying he improved significantly from his first performance.
“I think that Donald Trump did the best I’ve ever seen him do in a debate, and that goes back to 2016,” said Shober. “He was vastly better than in his first debate.”
Trump’s performance, Shober said, led former Vice President Joe Biden to stumble at times.
“Biden mostly held his own, but he did walk into some traps,” said Shober. “He challenged the President to find footage of him, and the President was able to find footage of him doing things he said he hadn’t done.”
Within hours of Biden denying that he had ever said he would get rid of fracking, a controversial method of natural gas extraction, and challenging Trump to find a tape of him saying otherwise, the Trump campaign had launched ads containing footage of Biden saying he would aim to get rid of fracking that at several points during the primary campaign.
Shober told hosts Matt Z and Earl Brooker that Biden managed to shine on questions surrounding COVID-19, but was unable to put away accusations surrounding his alleged involvement in his son Hunter’s business dealings in Ukraine.
But will the debate have an impact on an election where around 30% of voters have already turned in their ballots? The answer is a resounding ‘maybe’.
“There are enough undecided or wavering voters in [those that have not voted] that it could be relevant,” Shober said. “Was it a game changing debate? I’m not sure.”
The debate was the last meeting between the two candidates.
