I think unfortunately, that who really does better in debates is much less important these days than who outperforms their expectations (largely by the media sphere). I mean, in the first debate Trump was hot garbage, but he's rarely ever made any actual rhetorical sense and so there are no expectations for him to do so in any debate or public forum. It's incredibly frustrating, but the media basically sets the bar for Trump in a place where he'd have to literally piss his pants mid-debate in order to get the kind of negative attention that Biden got after the first debate (not so different from how the bar was laid on the floor for Bush during debates). The only source of optimism I have for this years debates is that the Harris-Walz team has already shown that they're savvy to how the meme-like messaging is more important than winning some sort of high school debate contest. I would hope they will use the debates to hammer home how weird and creepy Trump and Vance are.
