It’s always hard to predict how viewers will react to a presidential debate. One thing is clear nonetheless: Kamala Harris cannot do better than she did last night.
That is not to say that she gave Americans a clear, persuasive argument why she should be entrusted with the presidency. She transparently refused to answer questions about the administration’s economic and immigration record. She offered pandering platitudes as plans and returned to her main task: attacking Trump relentlessly.
She did well nonetheless for two reasons: she avoided serious misstatements, and she was articulate in her answers. Voters who leaned toward her will find little to cause them to change their minds.
Trump, however, was the main reason she excelled. Trump failed to call her to task for her obvious failure to answer direct and relevant questions. He was often too hot and angry, mistaking that for strength. That was a strategic error of massive proportions.
He had to define Harris for the nation, pointing out her extremely liberal past while demonstrating that he could be trusted to fix the economy, the border, and restore American strength abroad. Rather than do that, he reacted to her taunts and personal attacks, wasting time that should have been used to make Harris the campaign’s focus.
He won’t lose support among his base. Trump’s fans view him as the only person who stands between them and ruin. Nothing he said or did will shake that faith one iota.
The question is whether he can still garner the support of the two to four per cent of Americans who aren’t part of his base who are considering voting for him. They are the difference between victory and defeat, and he missed his chance to flummox Harris.
The question now is whether those people will find Harris to be an acceptable alternative. The question they need to ask is whether Trump on a poor night is still preferable to Harris on her best.
That brings us back to the fact that Harris refused to defend the administration’s record on the issues that polls show matter most. Pundits might look at their exchanges and his anger and conclude she is a clear winner. But the swing voters might look at her dodging and see someone who cannot accept responsibility for the problems Americans face.
Harris might also be tripped up for her articulateness. Trump is noted for using basic words and simple grammar. That is panned by college-educated pundits and could be one of the reasons why college-educated voters tend to shy away from him.
But working-class voters seem to love him in part because he doesn’t talk over them. Time and time again, Harris used words that recent immigrants or non-college voters simply don’t know. She name-checked ideas and events that are well known to DC politicos, but likely aren’t household knowledge in working-class neighbourhoods.
Harris’ momentum had been fading in recent polls. Political analyst Nate Silver’s touted election model had been showing Trump was increasingly the favourite to win. She needed a strong performance, and she got it.
If the polls don’t show a small but consistent uptick in her support over the next ten days, it is hard to see what she can do to turn that trend around. If they do show that improvement, and if she becomes the narrow favourite again, that puts pressure on Trump to recapture the momentum.
The race will only get hotter and more negative regardless of how the debate is viewed by swing voters. Expect seven more weeks of vitriol – and perhaps a second debate in mid-October as both candidates throw caution to the wind in an effort to appeal to the tiny slice of voters whose views will decide who prevails.
Voting populist in Europe? We are all a bit East German now