Tuesday night’s debate represented a victory for Vice President Kamala Harris over former President Donald Trump in what, despite the former president’s rocky performance – and Harris’ inevitable polling boost – remains a toss-up race.
Make no mistake, while the Vice President walked away the winner, it is unlikely that this debate – almost certainly the only one, as neither side is likely to accept the other’s proposed rules going forward – will decide the election.
To her credit, Harris spent most of the night setting traps for the former president, and he walked into every single one. Throughout the debate, Trump was squarely on the defensive, even on issues where Trump has a clear advantage, such as immigration.
Indeed, when immigration came up, Harris successfully flipped the tables on Trump, belittling the size of his rallies, getting under Trump’s skin and causing him to be visibly angry.
In response, Trump spent the first half of his answer ranting about his rallies compared to the Vice President’s, rather than attacking the Biden-Harris administration’s record on the Southern border.
To that end, despite avoiding concrete answers on the policies she will pursue or how she will differ from President Biden, Harris undoubtedly proved to many Democrats that she is a capable leader.
The Vice President made an especially strong case on abortion and healthcare, while repeatedly preaching unity to deeply divided nation.
Put another way, Harris followed the rules which have guided her campaign thus far: do no harm, stay away from specifics, and turn the election into a popularity contest.
Many on the right have – with some credibility – blamed ABC’s moderators for tipping the scales by fact-checking Trump considerably more than Harris, but that obscures Trump’s role in the outcome.
Trump constantly fell for Harris’ bait, regardless of any fact-checking. And the moderators are not responsible for Trump’s extreme statements that the 2020 election was stolen, declaring Democrats want to legalize abortion “in the ninth month,” or that immigrants were “eating pets” in Ohio.
The former president missed multiple opportunities to draw clear contrasts between their two records, was unable to tie Harris to an unpopular administration, and did not press Harris for details on the vague “plans” she has to strengthen the economy.
Similarly, rather than telling moderates how his second term would improve their lives, Trump’s obsession with his personal grievances led him to relitigate the 2020 election and emphasize an endorsement from Viktor Orban, Hungary’s far-right, authoritarian Prime Minister.
Even on foreign policy, perhaps the one area Trump successfully made his case by contrasting the current geopolitical chaos with the relative stability during his first term, Trump’s presentation was damaged by a refusal to say whether or not he even wants Ukraine to win the war Russia started.
Finally, by waiting until the closing statement to ask Harris why, if she has the solutions she claims to have, she has not implemented any of them over the last three and a half years. That is a point Trump should have made throughout the night.
Instead, by repeatedly letting Harris off the hook, Donald Trump contributed to Harris’ victory just as much as anything the Vice President said.
In many ways, Trump seemed to only be speaking to his base, rather than to swing voters who may not view either candidate favorably but could be attracted to Trump’s policies on issues such as the economy, immigration, and crime.
Conversely, Harris clearly reached out to swing voters and disaffected Republicans wary of a second Trump term by stressing a message of unity and signaling that she would govern from the center, even if she has a history of pursuing policies further to the political left.
However, observers should not rush to overstate the impact of Trump’s poor performance.
National and swing state polls remain neck-and-neck, and one debate is likely too little to have a decisive impact. Underscoring this, while “half of respondents” said Harris won the debate, Trump actually gained a point in a horserace in a post-debate poll published by the New York Post, indicating the debate’s negligible impact.
In that same vein, CNN’s flash poll of registered voters who watched the debate shows that a majority (54%) of voters say they have “a lot” or “some” confidence in both Donald Trump’s and Kamala Harris’ ability to lead the country.
In other words, Harris’ strong performance was not enough to separate herself from Trump on this key metric, nor did Trump’s performance dent voters’ confidence in him.
Perhaps the biggest reason that this race is not over however, are the problems facing the country, which, to his credit, Trump did address in his closing statement.
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Americans are deeply pessimistic about the state of the country and want change. A full 6-in-10 likely voters say the country is headed in the wrong direction per NYT/Siena polling.
To that end, a majority (55%) of likely voters – including 60% of Independents and 51% of Hispanic voters – say Harris represents “more of the same” while just one-quarter of likely voters see her as a “major change,” in the same poll.
For Trump, a majority (53%) of likely voters see Trump as a “major change” with roughly one-third (34%) saying he represents “more of the same.”
Moreover, on the two most important issues to voters – the economy and immigration – the CNN poll shows that voters trust Trump to handle both by more than 20 points.
Ultimately, it is entirely possible that as election day nears, voters will focus on the policies – rather than the personalities – of the two candidates. That paradigm shift, seemingly favoring Trump – as well as his tendency to outperform pre-election polling – means that, despite Harris’ clear victory, it would be a mistake to consider the race over.
Douglas Schoen is a longtime Democratic political consultant.