For 15 minutes, everything was going well for Donald Trump. In fact, he was winning the debate. The opening questions focused on the economy, the cost of living and trade policy. He was concise and provided the contrast he needed.
Kamala Harris started off wobbly, shaky. She avoided questions and taking any responsibility for inflation or explaining how she can attack Trump for his tariff policy when the Biden-Harris administration has left some of its tariffs in place. She even spent time posing in cutaway shots with her hand on her chin, obviously trying to create a memorable moment.
She was all attack and avoidance, and that wasn't working for her.
But then the issue of immigration came up and the rest of the debate veered toward Trump. Incredibly, Trump, on his main topic, allowed himself to be distracted by a mockery from Harris about his rallies.
Harris was asked directly why the Biden-Harris administration waited until six months before the election to do anything on immigration. She ignored it and instead mocked Trump, saying people were bored with his speeches and left early.
And he couldn't stand it. Instead of attacking her for one of her weakest points, he raised his voice and offered a vigorous defense of her statements.
And from that point on, Harris largely dictated the flow of the debate.
ABC’s moderators did come prepared to keep Trump in check, fact-checking and re-checking while ignoring some of Harris’s outlandish lies (she repeated the “bloodbath” lie again, and the moderators allowed it, as an example. When Trump used that term, he was talking about the American auto industry and what would happen if Democratic policies were upheld instead of his own).
To most Republicans, Trump seemed to be playing a road game with home-cooked food from locally hired referees. One Republican texted me saying the debate looked more like a trial of Trump with three prosecutors rather than a debate between two candidates.
It seemed to me that the moderators were much more willing to push and fact-check Trump and had little interest in doing the same with Harris.
But that was to be expected, and you can't complain about the refs when you're not making your own jump shots. And for Trump, that's no excuse for him to go off topic (at least until his closing statement) and fail to make the central argument that needs to be made: If you want change, you can't leave the same people in charge.
Debates present many questions and issues, but to win them you have to have a clear theme. The New York Times poll last weekend made it clear what that theme should have been for Trump: being the candidate of change. Fortunately for Trump, he has already seen it more often than Harris.
I’m not sure the debate changed that equation — Harris is the sitting vice president, after all, and she dodged almost all questions about her administration’s record, something that is surely very obvious to voters who are quite unhappy with the past three and a half years. But Trump missed several opportunities to steer the conversation back to a topic that suits him.
This was Trump’s seventh presidential debate. Early polls have already called him the underdog six times. In 2016, he “lost” all three debates against Hillary Clinton before winning the election. In 2020, he “lost” both debates against Biden and then lost the election.
After Tuesday night’s debate, early polls showed a resounding Harris win, 63% to 37%. Mind you, this is only for debate watchers. One thing Trump is relying on to pull off a victory this year is politically disengaged voters (especially men), and they likely weren’t following the debate as closely, if at all.
Trump is Trump. We know him. We love him. We hate him. There isn't a single person in this country who doesn't have an immediate and often visceral opinion about him.
So a debate is unlikely to change his image.
But in Harris’s case, she has likely cleared the bar in her competence, even if she has avoided taking responsibility for Biden and Harris’s failures. Polls in the coming days will tell us more about whether she has succeeded in winning over undecided and skeptical voters. Trump’s image may be set in stone, but Harris’s is not. This interaction may help her a little.
But the enduring question of the election is whether the American people will punish Harris for the Biden-Harris administration or see her as a sufficiently different person and give her another chance to get things right. Harris presented herself as a “generational shift” during the debate (she’s only 59 compared to Trump’s 78, though she clearly doesn’t represent a huge policy shift).
Current polls show Trump in a strong position to win, certainly stronger than he was at this point in the campaign in 2016 and 2020. A national tie almost certainly means Trump will win the electoral college.
But the debate offered perhaps his best chance to cement his position in the campaign, and like his somewhat disappointing convention speech, it missed a beat.
Scott Jennings is a contributor to Opinion, a former special assistant to President George W. Bush and a senior political commentator for CNN. @ScottJenningsKY
