Harris beats Trump in debate, but there is no guarantee she will influence the election

Donald Trump defeated Kamala Harris in a virtual coin toss before the presidential debate – but that was pretty much all he won.

From the first moments on Tuesday night, when the vice president strode to Trump's lectern and all but forced him to shake her hand, she dictated the terms of their decisive clash exactly eight weeks before Election Day.

From Harris' point of view, the evening could hardly have gone better.

She seemed energetic and radiated a positive vision for the future. Trump, on the other hand, looked grim, cursed and insulted America as a failing nation and seemed out of form. The vice president, who sometimes struggles in spontaneous situations, delivered the most impressive performance of her political career. Trump, who went into the debate predicting that he would confirm boxing champion Mike Tyson's maxim “Everyone has a plan until they get punched in the face,” was surprised by the numerous jabs himself and could only hit back at a few.

At a time when nearly a third of voters in a recent poll said they wanted to know more about Harris, the vice president's performance seemed more likely to broaden her coalition. Trump, meanwhile, made little effort to change the perception of his dystopian intentions among key voters in the swing states that will decide the election. He has struggled to let go of his first two terms and often seemed to wish he was still debating his one-time rival, President Joe Biden.

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Debate victories do not always lead to election victories

It often takes days or weeks for a presidential debate to penetrate deeply into the electorate and leave a lasting impression. Candidates who triumph on the debate stage do not always win the election. Both Trump in 2016 and President George W. Bush in 2004 lost debates but ultimately won the White House.

And while Democrats were euphoric after Harris' performance, partisans often judge a debate based on their own policy preferences. Even if he loses ground after the debate, Trump has long held the edge on the two most important election issues – the economy and immigration. With many voters still waiting for the benefits of the post-pandemic economic recovery, it's not certain that a debate will be a deciding factor in their election. And Trump's dire messages on immigration and crime may be overblown, but they have proven effective in the past. There's also always the possibility that shocking events at home or abroad in the next two months could tip the balance.

It's too early to say whether Harris's strong performance will give her new momentum, but her campaign team will likely be optimistic that she has improved her chances with the potentially 200,000 flexible voters who will decide the next election in a handful of states.

Harris set the trap. Trump fell into it again and again

Harris wasted no time on Tuesday evening and ticked off her goals.

She addressed her viewers at home directly, promising to ease the burdens of working Americans struggling with high food and housing prices. She goaded Trump about the size of his crowds and called him weak. And amazingly, he fell into the trap every time, with angry outbursts that backed up her claim that he was unfit for another term and that the country had only a fleeting chance of leaving its bitter mess behind. Her thorough preparation paid off, as she avoided campaign-threatening mistakes.

Essentially, Harris validated the Democrats' decision to drop Biden as their nominee by thoroughly dismantling Trump's character, policies and legacy, something she did not do in the disastrous June debate that ended his campaign.

Taylor Swift, whose megastar endorsement the Trump team falsely claimed last month using artificial intelligence, apparently shared this opinion, declaring immediately after the debate ended: “I will be voting for Kamala Harris and Tim Walz in the 2024 presidential election.”

When Trump became upset, Harris did not react to Trump's behavior but laughed and rested her chin on her hand several times. The second time she did this, it seemed contrived, but the gesture could become an iconic symbol of the debate on social media.

When she teased Trump about his obsession with rallies, he inexplicably let her get away with one of her most sensitive issues – the southern border. “Let me first address the rallies,” Trump said. “People don't leave my rallies. We have the biggest rallies, the most incredible rallies in the history of politics.”

It was a classic example of Harris repeatedly exploiting perceived character flaws in Trump to give him room to undermine his own performance during the debate.

The ex-president's inability to resist the bait that was constantly being dangled in front of him meant that the most fearsome political actor of modern times spent the evening destroying himself rather than destroying his opponent. That was never more evident than when he repeated a racist slur about Haitian immigrants eating pets — which even his vice presidential candidate, JD Vance, admitted on Tuesday may not be true. Harris just shook her head after seeing her opponent confirm her allegations about his extremism.

The vice president initially shrugged off Trump's attempts to make the election a referendum on her race and gender, but on Tuesday she spoke back even more forcefully at her opponent. She mentioned his past calls for the execution of the Central Park Five and his lies about President Barack Obama's birthplace, and portrayed him as a divisive force seeking to exploit America's deepest historical wounds for his own benefit. “I think it's a tragedy that we have someone who wants to be president when he has, over and over again throughout his career, tried to divide the American people over race,” she said.

Harris' performance was not perfect. She dodged answering her very first question – the classic one about whether voters are better off today than they were four years ago. Nor did she say directly whether she regretted the deaths of 13 American soldiers killed in the chaotic U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2021, whose deaths have become a central theme of the Trump campaign. But even her evasions showed that she has become a more effective political performer when she focused on her arguments and Trump was unable to cross-examine her effectively.

Trump did not make his best argument

Trump's inability to focus on a consistent attack on Harris or to abandon her obvious attempts at distraction confirmed the fears of many Republicans who are disappointed by his failure so far in dealing with his new opponent.

Ironically, Trump suffered from the same deficit that plagued Biden in the June debate: he was unable to pin down his opponent and was unable to present a convincing plan for the future.

Trump often fell down far-right rabbit holes, using analogies that only regular viewers of conservative media would understand. And at times it seemed like the ex-president had shown up for a debate, but his rhetoric was more like one of his wild rallies. In defense of his first term and his global leadership, he quoted Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, backing up Harris's claim that he admired foreign autocrats. To back up his false claims, he said he was supported by opinion moderators on Fox News – in a way that may have pleased his core constituency, but also suggested that his life in the conservative fishbowl had undermined his ability to speak to more moderate voters.

Trump's team had pushed for the microphones to be turned off when the candidates weren't speaking – apparently to thwart the vice president's desire to review the former president's statements in real time and limit his temptation to interrupt. But the restrictions ultimately hurt Trump, who was forced to remain silent while Harris delivered a lecture that a former president never gets to hear in public.

One way to judge a debate is to turn down the sound on the television and pay attention to the candidates' body language. On Tuesday night, Trump glowered and flexed the muscles around his mouth while his face looked like a clap of thunder. Harris delivered her blows with a knowing smile and looked viewers at home straight in the eye.

The former president's biggest mistake was not challenging Harris's greatest weakness. She is often strong in staged situations, but struggles when caught off guard. Trump has created far too few such moments to embarrass his rival. It was only in his closing argument that he made his strongest possible statement – that Harris, who has been a key part of an administration for more than three years, has done none of the things she wants to do now.

He also wavered on an issue that polls show is disastrous for his standing with female voters – abortion. Trump sought credit for building the conservative Supreme Court majority that struck down the nationwide constitutional right to abortion while falsely claiming that most Americans had always wanted the issue returned to the states. This allowed Harris to make a scathing statement: “It's an insult to the women of America.”

The former president's strongest moments came at the very end of the debate, when he took a hard line at Harris and Biden over Russia's invasion of Ukraine. He raised the specter of Russian nuclear escalation and portrayed himself as the only thing standing between the United States and World War III. His promises to end the conflict may be closer to heartland sentiment than Biden's pledge to stand by Kyiv for as long as necessary. But Harris was probably right when she said Trump's plan can only be achieved through a peace deal that benefits President Vladimir Putin.

And even during his arguments with Harris over the war in Ukraine, Trump seemed to long for a campaign that would be far more enjoyable than the one he is currently waging.

“You are not running against Joe Biden, you are running against me,” the vice president said in a statement that explains Trump's disorientation and may still shape the entire election.

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