Rarely have the stakes been so high in a presidential debate, with the electorate diametrically divided and a golden opportunity to define the final stretch of this campaign in front of tens of millions of television viewers. Especially for Kamala Harris, a candidate who has only been at the head of the ticket for a month and a half , who needed to shine and define her blurred political profile, and who went out last night to get her opponent out of his mind. It seems that, in part, she succeeded. Trump was on the defensive in a debate similar to those of recent years: rough, uncomfortable, with few courtesies beyond the handshake at Harris’ initiative.
“A survivor of a crime of rape of her body does not have the right to make a decision about what happens to her body next. This is immoral,” Kamala Harris said at the beginning, capitalizing on one of the issues that most mobilizes the electorate: abortion. One of the factors that explains the notable gender gap reflected in the polls: 56% of women say they will vote for Harris, compared to 41% who say they will vote for Trump.
“We will end up in World War III,” the Republican tycoon said in another block, and defined the international situation as a landscape of chaos : from the war in Ukraine to the withdrawal from Afghanistan, passing through the war in Gaza. Conflicts for which he directly blamed President Joe Biden and Kamala Harris.
The attacks were all over the list of issues: abortion, the economy, geopolitics, immigration, race, gun rights and, of course, Joe Biden’s management. An unpopular politician from whom Harris has tried to distance herself , despite the fact that the agenda she has presented is very similar to that of Biden, of whom she has been number two for more than two and a half years. “She is Biden. The worst inflation we have ever had. A horrible economy,” declared Donald Trump. Harris responded. “I am not Joe Biden and I am certainly not Donald Trump. What I am offering is a new generation of leadership for our country.”
The debate lasted 105 minutes in total , of which Trump spoke slightly more: 43 minutes. Five more than Kamala Harris. The Democrat, on the other hand, devoted a greater proportion of her time to attacking, according to The New York Times. 17 of the 37 minutes.
Another detail of the debate was the format: no audience and with closed microphones outside the interventions. ABC News presenters David Muir and Lindsey Davis performed the verification tasks: with Donald Trump. The journalists clarified that the crime rate in the US is not sky-high and that Haitian immigrants from the city of Springfield are not eating people’s pets , in reference to a hoax that the Republicans have been spreading in recent days.
This attentive attitude by Muir and Davis gave ammunition to Trump and his team, who accused the network organizing the debate of going against the Republican. One phrase that was repeated in the post-debate by conservative circles was this: three against one.
When Trump spoke, Harris looked at him like someone watching a drunken comedian stumbling down the street. Sometimes she smiled or laughed out loud, something that Donald Trump has admitted he hates with all his might. The Democratic candidate had studied in detail, during the five days she prepared for the debate, locked away in a Pittsburgh hotel, with a setting similar to the one for the debate and even a Donald Trump impersonator, how to attack the tycoon. And during the hour and 45 minutes that the meeting lasted, she launched her attacks.
A poll by Sienna College and The New York Times showed a few days ago that 28% of Americans did not think they really knew Harris. A deficit that the candidate tried to overcome in the debate by portraying herself as a moderate , despite having defended progressive positions in 2019 and 2020 on issues related to universal public health, the ban on fracking , which she no longer defends, or measures related to immigration and public order.
Trump, on the other hand, barely looked at her. After spending most of the meeting on the defensive, he regained some of his footing at the end and closed his speech by asking Harris why she had not done all those wonderful things she promises while in power and linking her, once again, to the political dead weight that Biden represents.
Harris’s allies jumped to her defense in the post-debate, that key moment when political spokespeople try to define the perceptions of journalists and public opinion. She highlighted the strategic support of Taylor Swift , one of the most followed singers in the United States, for Harris, expressed shortly after the meeting.
For 47% of Americans, Harris won the debate, compared to 45% who think Trump won
Despite Harris’s more organized performance, the overall advantage in this election is not on her side. In 2016, Hillary Clinton was three points ahead of Donald Trump in the polls, and lost the election. In 2020, Joe Biden was far ahead of Trump, about seven points, but won by very narrow margins in the key states. In the latest national poll, Donald Trump is ahead of Kamala Harris. Only two points, but those two points count for more than they seem : the Democrats calculate that, to win the Electoral College delegates, they need to have at least a 3% lead in the popular vote.
Moreover, Trump is technically more popular now than he was in 2016 and 2020. Just a little more: 46%. At the peak of his support since entering politics. But enough to confirm that, in contemporary America, political spaces are watertight compartments.
An ABC News national snap poll found that 47 percent of Americans thought Harris won the debate, compared with 45 percent who thought Trump won. But Harris’s performance was perhaps more directed at her own party, the Democrats, where, despite a sophisticated operation to sell her as the bright future of the nation, there were questions about her poise and competence. There was celebration in progressive circles last night. Harris’s campaign said it wanted a second debate, which could be held in October. Trump suggested that one would be enough.
Rarely have the stakes been so high in a presidential debate, with the electorate diametrically divided and a golden opportunity to define the final stretch of this campaign in front of tens of millions of television viewers. Especially for Kamala Harris, a candidate who has only been at the head of the ticket for a month and a half , who needed to shine and define her blurred political profile, and who went out last night to get her opponent out of his mind. It seems that, in part, she succeeded. Trump was on the defensive in a debate similar to those of recent years: rough, uncomfortable, with few courtesies beyond the handshake at Harris’ initiative.
