Trump was 100% successful in meeting his strategic goals yesterday. Again the media falls for it.

[EarlG]

10. Maybe...

I agree that Trump was probably happy to get the tax story off the front pages, and have the media talk about something other than COVID. My caveat is that these days I don't think the idea of "distracting" people from other more important news stories is as big a deal as it used to be.

These days the news moves fast, people's attention spans are shorter, and you have to win the news cycle on a moment-by-moment basis. And right now, Trump is LOSING every news cycle, one after another, day after day. (With the possible exception of the SCOTUS nomination, although that has arguably fired up Democrats more than Republicans.)

So in the last week: SCOTUS nomination; 200,000 dead from COVID; Trump saying he won't commit to peaceful transfer of power; Trump announces lame health care executive order; Trump's tax returns revealed; Trump's debate performance... those are just off the top of my head. It's a firehose of news.

There isn't going to be a single bombshell story that completely changes the trajectory of the race -- but I do believe that the effect of all these negative stories is cumulative, and Trump is suffering badly because of it.