Tornado Alley (PROG)

[janice shell]

Reagan's decline was late in his second term...

No, it was not. He performed very badly in his first debate in 1984, as I've ben now said at least four times. Probably more. Do you for some reason not believe me, or are you just not paying attention to what other people say?

When Ronald Reagan Blew a Presidential Debate and Dropped Seven Points in the Polls

Perhaps one useful way of explaining the current Democratic panic, the most intense since the party’s August 2012 panic, is looking back at how other presidents have blown their first debates. And no incumbent president has fumbled the ball quite as magnificently as Ronald Reagan. I know what the post-debate polls say, and that Romney’s domination of Obama was the largest in history. But you need to watch Reagan’s 1984 sleepwalk against Walter Mondale. The closing statement might be enough to get the point across. In 1980, famously, Reagan closed his speech with a riff that would be plagiarized for years to come...

https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2012/10/when-ronald-reagan-blew-a-presidential-debate-and-dropped-seven-points-in-the-polls.html

Note that that was written late in the 2012 presidential race, when there was considerable doubt that Obama would win a second term.