The debate in Philadelphia was a turning point for Kamala Harris. After a terrible interview with CNN and after hiding from journalists for a month, she came out swinging in the debate. Trump performed well, but what really mattered was how Harris did a great deal better than expected. She did get the expectable assistance from the moderators—after all, the debate host was ABC News—but she did hold her own through most of the debate
On many occasions, Harris came across as conversational and focused, likable and knowledgeable, and most of all: coherent, even intellectually dynamic. There were low points where she got rhetorically lost, often thanks to Donald Trump’s skillful debate tactics, but overall she held her own and came across as a competent candidate for president.
Under normal circumstances, we could all just shrug our shoulders and conclude that she passed the minimum requirements that all people running for president would have to pass. But the circumstances of this election are not normal. Kamala Harris was tossed into the race by her own party when they desperately ditched Joe Biden after the last debate. She started her campaign with a notorious reputation for being a giggling lightweight.
The Kamala Harris who stepped out on the scene came across as far and away a better, stronger, more intelligent, and more reliable candidate than the one viewers met in the CNN interview. This was obviously the Harris camp’s aim: to surpass viewer expectations, to impress them—and she did it by performing perfectly adequately in the debate.
She did not excel in any field. All she did was to perform better than the low expectations that she had created by botching her CNN interview.
Given the tight polls in many states, this debate will be highly consequential for the outcome of the November election. In fact, the Harris campaign’s two-punch tactic, first weak then strong, has probably shifted the opinion balance enough to win her the election. Voters who have remained undecided, and who are put off by Trump’s blunt personality, were given a reason to vote for Harris; many Democrat voters who had not felt enthusiasm about voting for her got a vitamin injection from her surprisingly strong debate performance.
With all that said, let us not forget that this is politics, where conspiracies run in all cardinal directions. Donald Trump is no worse than Kamala Harris at this game—on the contrary, he is one of the strategically most competent presidential candidates I have ever seen. He can still win this election, but unlike the landscape of the campaign before this debate, where Trump had the momentum and Harris was the underdog, he is now the one who has to ‘earn’ the victory in November.
Trump has many aces up his sleeve, among them the good old Reagan trick. Back in 1984, Ronald Reagan was running for re-election against the Democrat Walter Mondale. In the first debate, Reagan seemed off his game. He was tired and mostly seemed old and lacking in energy. That debate put Mondale ahead in the election predictions.
Then, in the second debate, Reagan showed vigor, humor, and force. He showed that was back, so decisively in fact that he won with one of the biggest margins in modern presidential history.
Donald Trump has the benefit of a second chance to debate Kamala Harris. He is likely not going to decide on that until he sees the opinion-poll fallout of this first debate, but either way, he did not do a poor job this time. Harris did surprisingly well.
That is not to say Trump did not have his low points; he did not excel in the debate. But if he outperforms himself in the next debate, he still has a good chance of winning in November.
In addition, despite her strong performance Kamala Harris did leave a trail of vulnerabilities throughout the debate. If there were a normal media culture in America, those vulnerabilities would be front page news the day after the debate. However, since American media leans politically heavily to the left, those vulnerabilities will only become relevant if the Trump campaign finds ways to exploit them.
That should not be too hard when it comes to the fact that Kamala Harris is President Biden’s vice president. During the debate in Philadelphia, Harris tried hard from time to time to run away from the Biden administration she is a part of. At one point she spelled it out that she is “not President Biden.”
Her efforts to sever ties with Biden did not pay off. Trump did a strong job of keeping her in the White House that opened America to massive illegal immigration: throughout the debate, Harris took punch after punch from Trump over the fact that she was Biden’s ‘border czar’ and responsible for keeping the U.S.-Mexico border secure.
Kamala Harris had no defense against those rhetorical punches.
She was also vulnerable on the inflation issue, where the Trump campaign has built a formidable narrative about how the sharp increases in cost of living under Biden was caused by his administration’s policies. At no point did Harris even try to defend herself on that issue.
There were other moments where Harris got lost in her own rhetoric. One of those moments was the debate over China and the Trump administration’s tariffs on Chinese imports. When Trump defended his tariffs and pointed out that the Biden-Harris administration had kept them, Kamala Harris got lost in a long, winding, and inconsequential talking point that had no real purpose.
At the same time, she made a strong performance on the abortion issue—one that is central to many Democrat voters. With a slight theatrical tremble in her voice, Kamala Harris talked about how the Supreme Court, with its overturning of Roe v Wade, had forced women to have miscarriages in parking lots rather than get health treatment in a hospital. She referred to the Supreme Court’s decision as a ‘Trump abortion ban’ and accused Trump of wanting to sign a national abortion ban into law.
Trump had strong and effective counterpoints to Harris’s abortion rant. He repeatedly suggested that she wants to allow abortions up to the ninth month. At one point, he even asked her directly about it; at every turn, Harris dodged the issue and instead accused Trump of wanting a total ban on abortion for any reason.
The former president did not linger on that issue. He firmly and repeatedly declared that he believes in abortion exceptions for rape, incest, and where the mother’s life is in jeopardy. He also noted that the issue of abortions is now off the federal government’s table—just like, he said, many people wanted.
Overall, the abortion segment of the debate was a win for Trump, as Harris refused to recognize any limitations to when an abortion can be performed. However, this win was lost when, during the segment on immigration, Trump claimed that illegal immigrants had been caught eating people’s pets in a town in Ohio. Regardless of whether or not it happened, the fact that he brought it up allowed Kamala Harris, and even the debate-hosting reporters from ABC News, to put a proverbial tin foil hat on Trump’s head.
The third big issue of the debate was foreign policy. Trump competently explained how he kept Russia, China, and North Korea in line: their leaders, he said, were afraid of him and therefore did nothing aggressive. This was why, he said, Russia did not invade Ukraine on his watch, but did so three days after Kamala Harris in her capacity as vice president had been to Ukraine to meet with President Zelensky.
Harris failed to find her footing on the Ukrainian war issue. She tried to make the case that Vladimir Putin roots for Trump, whereupon he simply replied that the Russian president has endorsed Kamala Harris for U.S. president.
Harris was also at loss trying to explain how Ukraine could win the war. All she did was make a fluffy point about America standing side by side with her allies. Trump, on the other hand, was firm and clear: he wants the hostilities to end so the loss of human lives ends. Promising to make that happen in the transition period between his election victory and his inauguration, Trump exposed how weak the Biden administration has been on Ukraine. They were unable to deter the invasion itself, and they have no plan—or clout—to bring an end to the war.
Despite her weak points during the debate, Kamala Harris emerged from it as the front runner. She can still lose, but only if Trump ramps up his game in the last few weeks to the election. If there is a second debate—which the Harris campaign says it wants, it will be Trump’s turn to shock-and-awe the viewers; if there is no second debate, Trump’s path to the White House suddenly got a lot harder.
If he does not find a way to neutralize the reinvigorating energy that is now flowing into the Harris campaign, then this election may already be over.
Trump Is Lucky That Debates Aren’t Elections
This combination of pictures created on September 10, 2024 shows former U.S. President and Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump (L) and U.S. Vice President and Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris participating in a presidential debate at the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, on September 10, 2024.
Photo: SAUL LOEB / AFP
The debate in Philadelphia was a turning point for Kamala Harris. After a terrible interview with CNN and after hiding from journalists for a month, she came out swinging in the debate. Trump performed well, but what really mattered was how Harris did a great deal better than expected. She did get the expectable assistance from the moderators—after all, the debate host was ABC News—but she did hold her own through most of the debate
On many occasions, Harris came across as conversational and focused, likable and knowledgeable, and most of all: coherent, even intellectually dynamic. There were low points where she got rhetorically lost, often thanks to Donald Trump’s skillful debate tactics, but overall she held her own and came across as a competent candidate for president.
Under normal circumstances, we could all just shrug our shoulders and conclude that she passed the minimum requirements that all people running for president would have to pass. But the circumstances of this election are not normal. Kamala Harris was tossed into the race by her own party when they desperately ditched Joe Biden after the last debate. She started her campaign with a notorious reputation for being a giggling lightweight.
The Kamala Harris who stepped out on the scene came across as far and away a better, stronger, more intelligent, and more reliable candidate than the one viewers met in the CNN interview. This was obviously the Harris camp’s aim: to surpass viewer expectations, to impress them—and she did it by performing perfectly adequately in the debate.
She did not excel in any field. All she did was to perform better than the low expectations that she had created by botching her CNN interview.
Given the tight polls in many states, this debate will be highly consequential for the outcome of the November election. In fact, the Harris campaign’s two-punch tactic, first weak then strong, has probably shifted the opinion balance enough to win her the election. Voters who have remained undecided, and who are put off by Trump’s blunt personality, were given a reason to vote for Harris; many Democrat voters who had not felt enthusiasm about voting for her got a vitamin injection from her surprisingly strong debate performance.
With all that said, let us not forget that this is politics, where conspiracies run in all cardinal directions. Donald Trump is no worse than Kamala Harris at this game—on the contrary, he is one of the strategically most competent presidential candidates I have ever seen. He can still win this election, but unlike the landscape of the campaign before this debate, where Trump had the momentum and Harris was the underdog, he is now the one who has to ‘earn’ the victory in November.
Trump has many aces up his sleeve, among them the good old Reagan trick. Back in 1984, Ronald Reagan was running for re-election against the Democrat Walter Mondale. In the first debate, Reagan seemed off his game. He was tired and mostly seemed old and lacking in energy. That debate put Mondale ahead in the election predictions.
Then, in the second debate, Reagan showed vigor, humor, and force. He showed that was back, so decisively in fact that he won with one of the biggest margins in modern presidential history.
Donald Trump has the benefit of a second chance to debate Kamala Harris. He is likely not going to decide on that until he sees the opinion-poll fallout of this first debate, but either way, he did not do a poor job this time. Harris did surprisingly well.
That is not to say Trump did not have his low points; he did not excel in the debate. But if he outperforms himself in the next debate, he still has a good chance of winning in November.
In addition, despite her strong performance Kamala Harris did leave a trail of vulnerabilities throughout the debate. If there were a normal media culture in America, those vulnerabilities would be front page news the day after the debate. However, since American media leans politically heavily to the left, those vulnerabilities will only become relevant if the Trump campaign finds ways to exploit them.
That should not be too hard when it comes to the fact that Kamala Harris is President Biden’s vice president. During the debate in Philadelphia, Harris tried hard from time to time to run away from the Biden administration she is a part of. At one point she spelled it out that she is “not President Biden.”
Her efforts to sever ties with Biden did not pay off. Trump did a strong job of keeping her in the White House that opened America to massive illegal immigration: throughout the debate, Harris took punch after punch from Trump over the fact that she was Biden’s ‘border czar’ and responsible for keeping the U.S.-Mexico border secure.
Kamala Harris had no defense against those rhetorical punches.
She was also vulnerable on the inflation issue, where the Trump campaign has built a formidable narrative about how the sharp increases in cost of living under Biden was caused by his administration’s policies. At no point did Harris even try to defend herself on that issue.
There were other moments where Harris got lost in her own rhetoric. One of those moments was the debate over China and the Trump administration’s tariffs on Chinese imports. When Trump defended his tariffs and pointed out that the Biden-Harris administration had kept them, Kamala Harris got lost in a long, winding, and inconsequential talking point that had no real purpose.
At the same time, she made a strong performance on the abortion issue—one that is central to many Democrat voters. With a slight theatrical tremble in her voice, Kamala Harris talked about how the Supreme Court, with its overturning of Roe v Wade, had forced women to have miscarriages in parking lots rather than get health treatment in a hospital. She referred to the Supreme Court’s decision as a ‘Trump abortion ban’ and accused Trump of wanting to sign a national abortion ban into law.
Trump had strong and effective counterpoints to Harris’s abortion rant. He repeatedly suggested that she wants to allow abortions up to the ninth month. At one point, he even asked her directly about it; at every turn, Harris dodged the issue and instead accused Trump of wanting a total ban on abortion for any reason.
The former president did not linger on that issue. He firmly and repeatedly declared that he believes in abortion exceptions for rape, incest, and where the mother’s life is in jeopardy. He also noted that the issue of abortions is now off the federal government’s table—just like, he said, many people wanted.
Overall, the abortion segment of the debate was a win for Trump, as Harris refused to recognize any limitations to when an abortion can be performed. However, this win was lost when, during the segment on immigration, Trump claimed that illegal immigrants had been caught eating people’s pets in a town in Ohio. Regardless of whether or not it happened, the fact that he brought it up allowed Kamala Harris, and even the debate-hosting reporters from ABC News, to put a proverbial tin foil hat on Trump’s head.
The third big issue of the debate was foreign policy. Trump competently explained how he kept Russia, China, and North Korea in line: their leaders, he said, were afraid of him and therefore did nothing aggressive. This was why, he said, Russia did not invade Ukraine on his watch, but did so three days after Kamala Harris in her capacity as vice president had been to Ukraine to meet with President Zelensky.
Harris failed to find her footing on the Ukrainian war issue. She tried to make the case that Vladimir Putin roots for Trump, whereupon he simply replied that the Russian president has endorsed Kamala Harris for U.S. president.
Harris was also at loss trying to explain how Ukraine could win the war. All she did was make a fluffy point about America standing side by side with her allies. Trump, on the other hand, was firm and clear: he wants the hostilities to end so the loss of human lives ends. Promising to make that happen in the transition period between his election victory and his inauguration, Trump exposed how weak the Biden administration has been on Ukraine. They were unable to deter the invasion itself, and they have no plan—or clout—to bring an end to the war.
Despite her weak points during the debate, Kamala Harris emerged from it as the front runner. She can still lose, but only if Trump ramps up his game in the last few weeks to the election. If there is a second debate—which the Harris campaign says it wants, it will be Trump’s turn to shock-and-awe the viewers; if there is no second debate, Trump’s path to the White House suddenly got a lot harder.
If he does not find a way to neutralize the reinvigorating energy that is now flowing into the Harris campaign, then this election may already be over.
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