With a laugh and a smile, Kamala Harris tore through Donald Trump in the ABC news presidential debate on Tuesday night. The Democratic Party candidate knew all eyes were on her when the debate began, and how she would measure up to her Republican rival.
In the end, she got under Trump’s skin so much, that he was visibly agitated at several points. Especially when she punctured his ego, such as questioning the size of crowds that came to his rallies something Trump is obsessed with.
The icing on the cake was pop star Taylor Swift’s ringing endorsement of Harris after the debate, signing off as a “childless cat lady”. It was clear during the debate that Trump much preferred debating a shaky Joe Biden and tried more than once to invoke the current president. Harris firmly reminded him that he was up against her, and not Biden and for once Trump was speechless.
There were many memorable moments in the debate not least of which was the former president repeating a mind boggling untruth — that Haitian immigrants in Ohio were eating pet dogs and cats of the local residents there. More than once, he referred to Harris as a “Marxist” as he tried to paint her as a “radical” left liberal.
Harris outperformed Trump
Instead, as Harris baited him, Trump ended up reminding people about the Jan. 6 riots (where he refused to answer a question on whether he had regrets on his own role and blamed Nancy Pelosi instead) as well as his shaky views on women’s reproductive rights.
The question is: Will the debate shake up Trump’s base and will it solidify support for Harris, who has been neck and neck with Trump in the polls? According to a CNN poll done right after the debate, Harris outperformed Trump, 63% to 37%.
Before the debate, the same voters were evenly split on which candidate would perform more strongly, with 50% saying Harris would do so and 50% that Trump would, said CNN. Contrast this with the Trump-Biden debate in June, where voters who watched the debate felt Trump did better 67% to just 33% for Biden. That debate was a disaster for Biden and we know what happened in the weeks afterwards.
CNN poll done after Tuesday’s TV debate had another interesting statistic — “at the end of the night, debate watchers reported split opinions of Harris: 45% said they view her favourably, and 44% unfavourably. That’s an improvement from before the debate, when 39% of the same voters said they viewed her favourably.
Debate watchers’ views of Trump, meanwhile, shifted little — 39% rated him favourably and 51% unfavourably following the debate, similar to his numbers among the same voters before he took the stage”, said CNN.
There were moments where Trump could have taken advantage of the weaknesses in Harris’ position on key issues like fracking and Afghanistan. Instead, he was on the defensive about himself.
The question now is wherever this debate will have shifted the narrative in favour of Harris again. In the aftermath of Biden’s withdrawal from the campaign and in the run up to the Democratic National convention in August, Harris was on a high. But just ahead of the TV debate, a New York Times/Sienna poll showed her trailing Trump by 1 point. His support base remained strong while hers seemed to have waned.
Again, if you see the CNN post debate poll, 55% of voters who tuned in thought Trump handled the issues on the economy better, compared to 35% for Harris. 82% of registered voters who watched Tuesday’s debate say it didn’t affect their choice for president.
It only proves that in an election as tight as this, nothing can be predicted.
