For 15 minutes, everything was going well for Donald Trump. In fact, he was winning the debate. The opening questions were about the economy, the cost of living, and trade policy. He was articulate and provided the necessary contrasts.
Kamala Harris started unsteadily. She was shaky. She dodged questions, avoided taking responsibility for inflation or explaining how a Biden-Harris administration could attack Trump’s tariff policies while keeping some of them intact. She even posed with her hand on her chin in a cut shot, clearly trying to create a meme moment.
She just kept attacking and dodging, but it didn’t work.
But then immigration came up and the rest of the debate went against Trump, who incredibly allowed himself to be distracted by Harris’s provocations about his rallies and get sidetracked on his main issue.
When asked directly why the Biden-Harris administration waited until six months before the election to address immigration, Harris ignored the question, instead mocking Trump and saying people were getting tired of his speeches and going home early.
And he couldn’t resist. Instead of harshly criticizing one of her weakest points, he raised his voice and passionately defended his congregation instead.
From that point on, Harris largely dictated the course of the debate.
The ABC hosts were ready to hold Trump back, fact-checking him multiple times while ignoring some of Harris’ lies. (Harris again repeated the “genocide” lie, which the hosts tolerated. For example, when Trump used the word, he was talking about the US auto industry and what would happen if Democratic policies continued, not his own.)
To most Republicans, it felt like Trump was playing an away game, cooked up by a locally hired referee. One Republican texted me that the debate felt more like a trial of Trump before three prosecutors than a debate between two candidates.
It seemed to me that the hosts were far more willing to push and fact-check Trump, while being far less willing to do the same with Harris.
But that’s to be expected, and you can’t blame the referee when you’re not hitting the jump shot yourself. And for Trump, that’s no excuse (at least until his final words) for going off the rails and not making the core points he needed to make. If we want change, we can’t hold those same people responsible.
A debate can have many questions and topics, but to win it needs to have a theme. A New York Times poll from last weekend made it clear what that theme should be for Trump: be the candidate of change. Luckily for Trump, he already understands that better than Harris does.
It’s unclear whether the debate would have changed that — Ms. Harris is the sitting vice president and dodged most questions about her administration’s record, no doubt very salient to voters deeply dissatisfied with the past three and a half years — but Mr. Trump missed several opportunities to steer the conversation back to topics that were to his advantage.
This was Trump’s seventh presidential debate. In the previous six, instantaneous polls have labeled him as the loser. In 2016, Trump “lost” all three debates to Hillary Clinton before winning the election. In 2020, Trump “lost” two debates to Biden and then lost the election.
After Tuesday night’s debate, instant polls showed Harris winning by a landslide, 63% to 37%, but that was just looking at viewership of the debate. Trump is banking on the apolitical voters (especially men) to win this year, but they likely didn’t watch the debates as closely.
Trump is Trump. We know him, we love him, we hate him. There is hardly anyone in this country who doesn’t have a straightforward, often visceral opinion about him.
Therefore, the debate is unlikely to change his image.
But Harris likely cleared the bar while avoiding responsibility for the Biden-Harris fiasco. Polls in the coming days will show more about whether she moved the skeptical swing vote. Trump’s image may be immovable, but Harris’s is not. Harris may get some traction in this effort.
But the eternal question of the election is whether Americans will punish Harris for the Biden-Harris administration, or whether they will see her as different enough to give her another chance. She described herself as a “generational change” during the debate (she’s only 59, Trump is 78, but that certainly doesn’t represent much of a policy change).
Current polls suggest Trump has a strong chance of winning, certainly stronger at this point in the race than he did in 2016 or 2020. If there is a national tie, Trump is almost certain to win the Electoral College.
But the debate could have been his best chance to solidify his position in the election, and like his somewhat disappointing convention speech, he missed the moment.
Scott Jennings is a contributor to Opinion magazine, a former special assistant to President George W. Bush and a senior political commentator for CNN.
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