“Instant polls suggested viewers judged Ms Harris the victor. Her performance delighted Democrats, and she supplied far more of the punchy moments that tend to get highlighted in subsequent newscasts and shared online.”
With the last eight years as context, I don’t think Trump will lose any supporters over his performance last night against Kamala Harris.
However, after watching that debate in June, I can say this one left me feeling much better. Trump was easily baited into saying ridiculous shit, such as immigrants are “coming to eat all the pets,” that there are ongoing free transgender reassignment surgeries on illegal aliens in prisons, admitted he negotiated with terrorists by bypassing the Afghan government to directly negotiate with the Taliban, wasted time defending his rallies after Harris is pointed out people were leaving them early because they were “bored,” and defended the consequences of Roe versus Wade being overturned by saying “This is what everybody wanted.”
In my opinion, Kamala Harris set the tone of this debate at the very start when she crossed the stage to force Donald Trump to shake her hand.
Yep, she played him like a fiddle. His game “plan” was so predictable she essentially made it part of hers, and it worked.
Harris basically spent the first 15 minutes trying to break Trump’s concentration and get him to start lashing out emotionally. Trump had a brief edge there. Once she got him that was it though, by the time other areas he was strong at or points Harris was sidestepping came up it was too late, Trump was thinking with his mashed potatoes instead of his notes.
That’s basically the game here. Get Trump to act stupid and let him hang his own noose, side step the controversial positions or stuff Harris changed her mind on. Trump needed to keep his cool and play to his strengths, sidestep his faults(he did this ok for Abortion, but after that it crumbled) and tear into economy issues and Harris’s flipflops, which he did initially (I will say he never sounded ‘Old’ in the way Biden did), but once that was gone he went full Weird and lost it, just could not get back on track.
It’s inherently a bit of a gamble especially since Trump’s handlers know the game and he’ll know it today once he’s sobered up and calmed down. If Trump held on long enough Harris could have been in trouble with a couple issues, Harris is inherently on the backfoot due to such a short campaign season and stuff like having to change her policies to appeal nationally can’t be done gradually the way Hillary did it. There’s an inherent vulnerability there that someone like Niki Haley or another democrat would utterly maul her on. Trump can too, if, if he keeps his cool. He didn’t.
Walz doesn’t have the same weaknesses either. Neither does JD, but that’s just mostly going to come down to competency and normalness so Walz is walking in with an edge. (If it was Vance vs Harris and Trump vs Walz there might be a problem for the democrats, that configuration doesn’t play to their strengths)
Here is the archived link for those interested.
General consensus seems to be(among what’s left of the Swing Voters and Moderates, not a large group) is that Harris won the debate, showed she was professional and a capable speaker, and Trump made a fool of himself in the back half and lied chronically in the middle. Harris won, that was what people hoped for.
However, Harris staggered a bit the first 15 minutes before Trump got knocked off balance, and she didn’t really do a great job of explaining policy on her more controversial issues or directly addressing the flip flopping allegations(which could have been a problem, but by that point Trump was ticked off and lashed out emotionally instead of going in for the kill). Trump lost, but both the moderates and the betting markets suggest it’s not a Biden June level loss. The market loss was 4 points instead of 5 and it’s recovering quicker, there isn’t the same mass panic you saw after that on the Republican side, it’s more subdued panic.
Trump lost, but not campaign endingly so. Harris won, but she didn’t do the best job of explaining her policies which is the number 1 concern of swing voters. But also Trump didn’t capitalize on this, Harris knocked him off his game early and got him panicking so he couldn’t counter attack on those points when they came up.
I have my doubts Trump is going to go again, Harris knows how to push his buttons and get him off course before any of her more constroversial opinions come up. Trump can’t afford another debate loss. Harris probably wants to avoid dealing with Vance directly though, I think he could bite his tongue long enough to go at it more directly. Leave him to Walz, Walz doesn’t have that baggage.
Also it’ll shore up polling a bit, added to by the Swift thing. Probably a good idea for them as the Honeymoon period(which a lot of people were starting to write off as non-existent or a conservative lie or something to that extent) did seemingly end in the week leading up to the debate. Harris slumped and her lead shrunk.
It’s sort of a game of chicken at this point. Harris doesn’t have time to fully pace a slow burn campaign or bury policy flips deep enough back in the past to commit to a classical strategy. Trump’s been in the campaign longer and COULD sit out and try to let Harris slump. but her higher baseline and long honeymoon made that too risky. Harris won last night, she knocked Trump off his game before he had to chance to sink his teeth into the flipflopping. Does Trump risk a second run and hope he can hold his cool until she exposes herself or dodges a question or does he sit it out again and wait for this polling spike to fade by October? A loss in an October debate could be disasterous as it’s right before the election and there’s no time for a bump to cool down. A minor Trump win could shore up numbers at the last second. Sitting it out depends on what Harris does, which has been a mixed bag, but it puts the ball fully in her court to go on the offensive.
Harris would absolutely win in a full length campaign season, but there’s too little time for that and that creates weak spots. Weak spots Trump can exploit, but due to his own weak spots going for it is risky and last night Harris won that gamble.
(Oh and Harris didn’t score a buzzword on the level of “I’m Speaking” or “Will you Shut up Man?”. Best we’ve got for a Dean Scream type Anti-Line is Trump’s “I have a concept of a plan”, which while dumb isn’t ‘We beat Medicare’ tier. Sad media world, but that’s an important thing to note)
