Leverage is an interesting thing

Leverage is an interesting concept in general. If you and I are negotiating over the price of something, and we both know that you’re perfectly willing to walk away because you don’t really need it, then you have all the leverage. If you insist on paying less, and I really need to make the deal happen, I have to give you most or all of what you’re asking for. After all, we both know that if the deal falls through, it hurts me but doesn’t really hurt you.

Leverage also applies when to comes to political negotiations. If you’re the lone holdout in getting a particular piece of legislation passed, you can ask for one of your priorities to be added to the legislation. What are the rest of the politicians going do to so, say no to you? They need your vote, and they know it, and you know it. So within reason, you get what you want in exchange for voting for the legislation.

On the other hand, if a piece of legislation only needs one more vote and there are five holdouts, each of them only has a very small amount of leverage. If any one of them asks for more than a small amount, the party will just turn to one of the other five in order to get the vote. And everyone involved knows it.

This brings us to the 2024 presidential election. Back when the media was uniformly trying to sabotage President Biden, it was Donald Trump who had all the leverage. He didn’t have to do anything. If Biden had asked for another debate, Trump probably could have gotten away with saying no. If Trump didn’t want to have to hit the campaign trail, no one would have asked why he was sitting home. And so on. He had all the leverage, so he had a free pass.

Then things changed. Kamala Harris entered the race with instant momentum. This quickly gave her the lead in the polls, and also created a feel good story around her campaign. This meant that the media had no interest in going negative on her, because it feared audience backlash. Suddenly the focus was on why Trump wasn’t consistently hitting the campaign trail, and why he sounded so old and confused.

Now that Kamala Harris has opened a four point lead in the polling averages (and seemingly set to keep climbing), she has all the leverage. If no debates end up happening between her and Trump, it won’t hurt her any. She’s already firmly ahead. She doesn’t need to win a debate. But if no debate happens, it’s a serious problem for Trump. How can he have any hope of recovering from a growing polling deficit if he doesn’t go face to face with Harris and try to take her down for all to see?

It doesn’t matter that the odds of Trump winning the debate are low. He still has to try debating her. If he fails to show up for the debate, he’s essentially forfeiting. He’d be giving up his best opportunity to catch up to her. And because everyone knows he’s behind, failing to show up for the debate would be seen as weak on his part. He’d be seen as giving up. At this point failing to show up for the debate would arguably hurt Trump even more than if he shows up and loses the debate.

Of course Trump is strongly hinting that he might not show up for the debate. This is a move that Trump has always tried with every debate over the past nine years. He’s hoping that by threatening not to show up, he can get concessions on things like moderators and format. He’s hoping that ABC News will decide that it’s better to throw Trump a few bones than risk having him not show up at all. But because everyone knows that Trump is behind and needs this debate, ABC knows it doesn’t have to give him much of anything.

This is how leverage works. Kamala Harris’ four point lead in the polling averages isn’t yet big enough for my tastes (wake me when it gets to seven points), but it’s already enough to make the media wary of making up phony scandals about her, and it’s enough to back Trump into a no-win corner when it comes to the debates.

I’m not going to predict whether Trump will show up for the debate on September 10th. I’m simply saying that he has to show up, and that he knows he has to show up, and everyone else knows it too. If he fails to show up, he’ll essentially be giving up. So be it.