Vice President Kamala Harris and Donald Trump will come face-to-face for the first time Tuesday night as they debate in an effort to keep the other out of the Oval Office.
Harris has closed the polling gap with Trump after her surprise victory in the Democratic nomination, but she still lags in some polls. She will have a chance to turn the tide when the candidates meet in Philadelphia.
The vice president had a slight lead nationally in a slate of polls released in recent weeks, but her campaign got a surprise Sunday when a New York Times-Siena College poll gave Trump a 1 percentage point lead — suggesting that her momentum after President Joe Biden’s withdrawal has ended.
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But a strong debate performance against the unpredictable and unpredictable debater Donald Trump could give his White House bid a boost with less than two months to go until Election Day. The stakes couldn’t be higher in a race that shows many signs of a photo finish on Nov. 5.
“If her momentum continues, Harris will likely win. But she may not. If she stumbles in the Sept. 10 debate, the dynamics of the race could change,” said William Galston of the Brookings Institution, a former White House adviser under President Bill Clinton. “The Trump campaign could regain its balance and focus. And unforeseen events could change the dynamics between the candidates.”
Polls suggest voters want to hear from Kamala Harris on policy issues, and Las Vegas prognosticators believe she has a better chance of winning the debate. “The latest polls show that Kamala Harris has a 57% implied probability of winning the debate, while Trump has a 53% chance,” according to Vegas Insider. “Kamala Harris’ past performance in debates gives her a 55% chance of winning the debate, while Donald Trump has a 45% chance.”
Here are three things to watch for during the Harris-Trump debate.
Donald distracts him?
The candidates took different routes to Philadelphia, with Harris preparing for the debate in Pittsburgh and Trump saying and posting even more outrageous things — even threatening, if elected, to throw his opponents in jail.
“Therefore, the 2024 election, where voting has just begun, will be subject to the utmost professional oversight and, WHEN I WIN, those who CHEATED will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law, including lengthy prison sentences, so that this perversion of justice will never happen again,” Trump wrote in a message posted Sunday. “Those who engage in unscrupulous behavior will be sought out, arrested, and prosecuted at levels, unfortunately, never before seen in our Country.”
It follows a fiery press appearance in New York on Friday in which Trump repeatedly insulted several women who have accused him of sexual assault at a time when female voters may decide the outcome of the election.
The former president’s antics in recent weeks have led one Republican pollster to question whether his heart is really in the presidential race.
“I have never seen a candidate so determined to derail an election. Instead of talking about affordability and immigration security (the top public issues), Trump is once again screaming about the need to go after his opponents,” wrote pollster Frank Luntz on X. “Message to Donald: Focus on helping voters, not yourself.”
Access to abortion
For more than a month, Harris has been telling supporters at rallies that the election will likely be extremely close and that Democrats have work to do to get enough votes to put her in the White House.
She and her campaign are banking on abortion access helping her win with female voters, particularly college-educated white women living in suburban areas who often vote Republican.
“The impact of abortion on the 2022 midterm elections, where Democrats performed much better than expected, is undeniable. But there are indications that its impact may be more limited in this year’s elections,” Galston noted.
Abortion came in second, at 15 percent, in the Times-Siena poll when potential voters were asked what issue matters most to them. The economy came in first, at 22 percent, and immigration came in third, at 12 percent.
But, to echo Galston’s point, abortion came in eighth when registered voters in seven swing states were surveyed by the polling firm Blueprint on their top issues. Yet more of them said they trust Harris more than Trump on abortion, by an 11-point margin. Notably, among registered independent voters in those swing states, the vice president’s lead grew to 24 percentage points.
Expect her to try to woo more voters from that crucial bloc on Tuesday night.
“Old Guard”
It’s unlikely that anyone had this idea on their election-year bingo card: a Democratic presidential candidate praising Iraq War architect and staunch conservative Dick Cheney. In any other year, it might have seemed laughable.
After all, Democratic lawmakers and officials spent much of Cheney’s hawkish campaign harshly criticizing him for his actions as President George W. Bush’s right-hand man on national security and foreign policy after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.
Yet in a campaign that has already been marked by twists and turns, the statement seems fitting and could add a touch of novelty to Tuesday’s debate. Harris told reporters Saturday that she was “proud” to have Cheney’s endorsement. Her campaign also released an ad Monday showing members of the Trump administration, including former Vice President Mike Pence, saying they would not support him again this year.
It was in an effort to win over Republicans uncomfortable with Trump that Harris began inviting GOP representatives to speak at the Democratic convention last month. But bringing up Cheney could give Trump, who has struggled to agree on an anti-Harris message, a much-needed line of attack. In fact, Trump could choose to use Cheney’s support to try to paint Harris as an unknown quantity on national and global security issues — especially amid concerns about a regional war in the Middle East and the ongoing conflict between Russia and Ukraine.
Cheney has long advocated the use of U.S. military force, even preemptive wars. Trump is openly opposed to war, often calling it “stupid” and at times appearing to be harsh in his judgment of those who have made the ultimate sacrifice.
“Well, he’s clearly part of the old guard, the guard that are the country club Republicans who don’t support Donald Trump,” Trump campaign adviser Corey Lewandowski told Fox News on Sunday.
“And so, look, I don’t care what Dick Cheney says. We saw what happened to Liz Cheney in her last election,” he added. Cheney’s daughter, Liz, was ousted from House GOP leadership for questioning Trump’s false claims of voter fraud, then lost her reelection bid in Wyoming’s 2022 Republican primary by a margin of more than 2-1 after serving as vice chair of the select committee that investigated the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riot. “She was absolutely destroyed. … So they’re bitter and angry and they’re living in the past. It’s time to move forward.”
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