Coming into the first presidential debate between Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump, the margins in the election were razor thin. There was far from a consensus on who was ahead in the race; many looked to the September 10th contest as a tiebreaker to determine who would be campaigning with an advantage in the last few months before Election Day. Though the debate itself may not have created a clear-cut favorite for the presidency, it sent a message to the American people on who their candidates are, and what they stand for.
At the debate’s beginning, Harris sought out Trump for a handshake, making an effort to put the ball in Trump’s court. The exchange would epitomize the tone of the debate. Throughout the 100 minutes that the candidates shared the stage, Harris baited Trump on a variety of topics, prompting him to ramble on to his own detriment. Again and again, Trump bit. As has been his strategy in debates past, the former president gave himself the most airtime possible: He spoke for six minutes more than Harris, and got the last word in on each of the fifteen topics discussed, interrupting the moderators seven times in order to do so. His coherence in telling a mixed bag of truths, lies, and talking points also left a lot to be desired. The conclusion of the debate being followed by Taylor Swift’s endorsement of Harris only added insult to injury for the Trump campaign.
Post-birth executions of newborn babies, the debunked hoax of immigrants eating pets, and “transgender surgeries for illegal aliens in prison” were the most outlandish of his statements; Trump also went on about false claims that the 2020 election was stolen. These conspiracy-esque claims only served to hurt Trump’s attempts at convincing the country that the Biden/Harris administration has taken it in the wrong direction.
Harris attacked Trump on his ongoing criminal trials early on, ramping up the presses against him over the course of the night; she found success in pointing out his sinking of the bipartisan Secure the Border Act of 2023 and calling his rallies boring. His record on race was also put under fire, as Harris made note of investigations on housing discrimination, his calling for the execution of the Central Park Five, and his propagation of conspiracies that former President Barack Obama wasn’t born in the United States. The attacks on Trump were persistent: seventeen out of her 37 minutes of airtime were spent going after the former president, a significantly higher rate than President Biden in 2020 or in June.
David Muir and Linsey Davis, ABC’s two debate moderators, frequently seemed to lose control of the contest. Trump was fact checked a handful of times, which didn’t sit well with him or his supporters.
Both candidates, but particularly Trump, successfully pushed the moderators to get their mics unmuted against requests to move on or stay on topic. The Republican candidate often shifted the subject of argument, choosing to respond to Harris’ attacks or parrot conspiracies more often than not. Harris danced around directly answering questions more than a few times, and was content allowing Trump to set the course of the debate while she provided animated reactions to some of his more outlandish claims.
Following the overturning of Roe v. Wade, Harris stepped into the role of the Biden administration’s mouthpiece on abortion rights; she put her position on full display with impassioned dialogues about the right to women’s healthcare and the damage the rolling back of Roe’s protections has created. Trump touted his role in pushing abortion rights to the states by appointing three Supreme Court justices, though was noncommittal on whether or not he would veto a national abortion ban. Concrete policy wasn’t emphasized by either candidate, though their broad positions on abortion, the economy, and immigration were hammered home to viewers.
Though she wasn’t perfect, Harris did exactly what she had to: she got Trump flustered, attacked him frequently, and allowed him to make his own mistakes in front of a national audience. Though the impact on the polls will likely be minimal, Harris clearly walked out of Philadelphia in better shape than Trump. With the former President announcing that he won’t be participating in another debate, this was likely the final time we will see Kamala Harris and Donald Trump going head-to-head before Election Day. The Vice President will hope that the image of her looking bewildered at Trump’s ramblings will persist in the minds of voters across the country.
