Democrats have waited for months for Donald Trump’s record and temperament to become the focal point of the 2024 election.
Kamala Harris finally made it happen — at least for one night.
The Democratic presidential nominee aggressively and comprehensively criticized the former president during Tuesday’s debate, articulating a sustained attack against Trump that put him on the defensive over issues like abortion rights, the attack on the Capitol on Jan. 6 and even the size of his crowds at rallies. At times, Harris even appeared to visibly anger Trump, who struggled to press his advantage on subjects, like immigration, that should have been favorable for him.
“In Springfield, they’re eating the dogs, the people that came in, they’re eating the cats,” Trump said when decrying the state of the border, using a debunked conspiracy about an Ohio town that has zipped around some conservative circles this week. “They’re eating, they’re eating the pets of the people that live there!”
To many Democrats, Harris achieved what Joe Biden failed to do during his own halting and cataclysmic debate in June, channeling voter attention away from ongoing concerns about the state of the economy and toward Trump’s own record in office. Trump is too consumed with his own grievances to focus on pocketbook issues to help average people, Harris argued time and time again.
“I will tell you, the one thing you will not hear him talk about is you,” Harris said. “You will not hear him talk about your needs, your dreams and your desires. And I’ll tell you, I believe you deserve a president who actually puts you first, and I pledge to you that I will.”
Trump responded with his own attacks against Harris, focusing on her close relationship with the unpopular Biden, at one point saying, “She is Biden,” and raising ongoing concerns about the economy and cost of living — issues that have helped elevate Trump to a virtual dead heat with the vice president in election polls.
But even some conservatives, publicly and privately, conceded that the debate hadn’t gone well.
“This is what he gets for taking counsel from Laura Loomer,” one source close to Trump told NOTUS. Loomer, a far-right political activist, traveled to Philadelphia with Trump on his plane.
Trump’s surrogates in Philadelphia quickly leaped to do damage control. But they didn’t immediately defend Trump’s poor performance against Harris, so much as to shift blame for his shallow showing to the moderators, David Muir and Linsey Davis.
“I thought it went well,” Sen. Markwayne Mullin told NOTUS. “I hated that Trump was having to debate three people.”
The brunt of disdain was reserved for Muir, who frequently pushed back against Trump’s answers on the 2020 election and Jan. 6.
“The reality is, Donald Trump did something unprecedented in American history, which is to take on a three-on-one debate,” surrogate Vivek Ramaswamy said. “It’s a new format we haven’t seen in American politics.”
“David Muir as a moderator was particularly disgraceful tonight,” he added.
In between attacks on Harris’ record, Trump offered lengthy defenses of his record on abortion rights, his plan to enact large tariffs on trade goods and his conduct after the 2020 election. He once again insisted, falsely, that he had won in 2020, relitigating an issue many voters have moved on from. And he waded into a fight about the size of his and Harris’ rallies after being taunted by the vice president that many people leave his events out of boredom.
“Whoever did debate prep for Donald Trump should be fired,” Chris Christie, the former GOP governor of New Jersey, said on ABC after the debate. “He was not good tonight at all.”
Republicans admitted that Harris’ clear talking points made it even more obvious that Trump’s strategy, or lack thereof, failed to make an appearance. Despite zinging Harris with a couple one-liners — “I’m talking now. Please. Does that sound familiar?” — he seemed frustrated for much of the night.
“This was a case of a clear strategy beating no strategy,” said Kevin Madden, senior adviser and spokesman for Mitt Romney’s 2012 presidential campaign. “Harris was effective at baiting Trump into talking about himself and doing so with an agitation that doesn’t really align with voters. Trump needed to use the debate to fill in the blank slate on Harris for voters, but instead he used more of his time to litigate his grievances.”
As one Harris aide told NOTUS, “He is taking the bait at every turn.”
“This is so much more fun than I expected,” said a prominent Harris donor close to her, cheering on Harris’ performance.
It wasn’t until Trump’s closing statement that he landed a blow of significance: “She’s going to do all these wonderful things,” he said. “Why hasn’t she done it? She’s had three and a half years.”
While his surrogates pointed fingers at the moderators, his campaign highlighted Harris’ defense of the Afghanistan withdrawal.
“Did she mention the names of the 13 men and women from our United States Armed Forces who were killed?” spokesperson Karoline Leavitt asked. “She didn’t. She doesn’t know their names. She’s never made outreach to their families.”
Harris needed a jolt entering the debate. Polls of the race show Harris falling back into a dead heat with Trump this month, raising concerns among Democrats that the momentum she had gained in August has since stalled. An average of national polls by Nate Silver shows Harris leading nationally by 2 percentage points, while surveys of battleground states show an even closer race.
Polls show many voters say they want to know more about Harris, who has been reluctant to do media interviews since becoming the party’s new leader. A recent New York Times/Siena College survey showed 28% of likely voters feel they need to know more about her. Only 9% felt the same about Trump.
The debate gave both candidates a chance to improve on the margins; 3 in 10 voters said it would influence their decision in November, according to a survey from NPR/PBS News.
After the debate, Trump walked into the spin room in Philadelphia and told reporters he won the debate while setting the stage to avoid another one.
“I think it was the best debate that I’ve ever, personally, that I’ve had,” he said. “Now she wants to do another one because she got beat tonight, but I don’t know if we’ll do another one.”
“I thought it was a great night,” he added.
Since Harris became the nominee, Trump has focused on her and Biden’s record on immigration, crime and foreign policy, like the deadly withdrawal of American military forces from Afghanistan in 2021. But on each of these issues, the vice president — even if she often avoided talking about her own record — managed to turn the attention to Trump.
Harris, for instance, said Trump had saddled the Biden administration with “one of the weakest deals you can imagine” after he negotiated with the Taliban in Afghanistan.
“He calls himself a dealmaker,” she said. “Even his national security adviser said it was a weak, terrible deal.”
Top Democrats were upbeat after the debate but cautious not to go too hard in comparing this debate to what happened last time around.
Sen. Laphonza Butler told reporters that Harris advanced the party’s message. “I did not feel that way after the first debate,” she said. “This was definitely a different energy.”
Was it proof, then, that Democrats were right in pushing for Biden to leave the ticket? “I don’t think we’ll ever know,” she said.
“I don’t remember June,” former Rep. Cedric Richmond said when asked by NOTUS if he felt better now than he did after the Trump-Biden debate.
Pushed multiple times by multiple reporters on this debate versus the last, Richmond finally said, “I’m not comparing her to any other Democratic candidate. What’s important is to compare her to the alternative, which is a guy who only thinks about himself, who has always put himself above the country, who was twice impeached, convicted, and the list goes on and on again.”
—
Alex Roarty, Reese Gorman and Jasmine Wright are reporters at NOTUS. Ben T.N. Mause is a NOTUS reporter and an Allbritton Journalism Institute fellow.