Does Donald Trump Really Believe He Won the Debate?

Ever since he walked into the "spin room" at the conclusion of Tuesday night's debate, Donald Trump has been claiming that he won the debate. Does he really believe that? Are his advisers so cowed, or delusional themselves, that they are feeding his own delusions? And what does that say about them -- and him?

The overnight polls -- the objective ones -- say otherwise.

A CNN poll released Thursday of debate watchers showed Harris winning by a margin of 63-37%. A YouGov poll of registered voters who watched at least some of the debate gave the nod to Harris by a 54-31% margin, with 14% unsure. What's significant about these numbers in a polarized electorate is that they show Trump underperforming his 40+% base.

Of course, publicly at least, Trump has been ignoring the objective polls, invoking supposed online polling that he posts on Truth Social showing him beating Harris by large margins.

Winners don't go to the spin room after the debate ends in an effort to clean up the mess they made. Notably, Trump felt no need to spin after his debate with Biden, who clearly lost that debate. Winners don't attack the moderators for fact-checking outlandish lies and threaten to take the network's license away, as Trump has done. Winners welcome the opportunity to win again.

"We've done two debates and because they were successful, there will be no third debate," Trump said on Thursday, responding to Kamala Harris' call for a second debate. Curious. Even some of Trump's own advisers were heard to be calling for another chance to repair the damage done Tuesday night. I would have thought that Trump needed a second debate far more than Harris does, who raised record amounts after this one.

Commentators -- with the exception of those on Fox News -- were virtually unanimous in recognizing that Harris wiped the floor with Trump. And even on Fox, Brit Hume, the most respected voice there, was honest about Trump's performance: "Now, look, make no mistake about it, Trump had a bad night. He rose to the bait repeatedly when she baited him, something I'm sure his advisers had begged him not to do."

Hume is right. Trump's advisers clearly told him to focus on the issues voters care about, not to revisit his old complaints about who won the election in 2020, much less who has the biggest and most enthusiastic crowds. In their curtain raiser interviews, the official Trump team predicted that Trump would tie Harris to the failings of the Biden administration and question her commitment to change after three and a half years as vice president. You can be sure that immigrants stealing and eating pets was not the suggested sound bite in his briefing books.

Which raises the question of who Trump is listening to, if he is listening to anyone at all. The reports that he traveled to the debate with the right-wing provocateur and conspiracy theorist Laura Loomer, who, Axios has reported, was "egging him on" on the flight to Philadelphia, raises serious questions about the company he keeps. Loomer, who also accompanied him to the 9/11 memorial the next day, is so far outside the mainstream that Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene has attacked her as a racist. Is she the one telling Trump that he won the debate? And what does it say about the former president that he is listening to her?

Joe Biden unsuccessfully tried to dismiss his own debate performance as a bad night. Even Democrats didn't buy it, and rightly so. The same should be true of Trump. It wasn't just a bad night. It wasn't the fault of his prep team. It wasn't just a flawed performance. It was a fiasco that should raise serious doubts -- as serious as the doubts raised about Biden -- as to whether he is qualified to be president.

Whether it will ultimately make a difference in terms of who wins in November is largely a measure of just how polarized we are. Is loyalty really so blind? Do we lack any shared sense of reality? Trump didn't just have a bad night. What voters saw was the real Donald Trump. And it's scary.

I've been involved in presidential campaigns for the better part of 40 years. But I wasn't afraid of what would happen if we lost. I never called Ronald Reagan or George H.W. Bush or George W. Bush or Mitt Romney or John McCain scary. I was friends with many of their top aides. But Donald Trump and Laura Loomer are worse than weird.

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To find out more about Susan Estrich and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate website at www.creators.com.