Last Updated on 10/09/2024 by Arun jain
Tuesday night’s debate is the most important night in Vice President Kamala Harris’ political career. It will offer her one of her biggest audiences yet as the country tries to learn more about what kind of president she will make.
Former President Donald J. Trump entered the debate hoping to turn the page on a difficult summer. Ms. Harris has closed the poll gap with President Biden as the Democratic Party’s nominee. Tuesday may be one of Mr. Trump’s best shots to reverse that momentum before Americans start voting early.
Ms. Harris’s aides and supporters want her to push the former president into incoherent rants. Trump’s team wants to shift the conversation to three areas they see as win-win areas: the economy, immigration and global chaos.
With no other debates between Ms. Harris and Mr. Trump scheduled, the 90 Minutes is one of the most high-stakes face-offs in American politics in generations.
Here’s what to look for:
Can Trump stop himself?
Memories of former presidential advisers are fresh First Debate in 2020, When the Covid-addled Mr. Trump Joseph R. Biden Jr. spoke at the top and turned off so many voters that his turnout dropped significantly as a result.
Mr. Trump knows he did poorly in that debate and has privately acknowledged it, according to aides. But Trump advisers still worry that he will not be able to contain his animosity toward Ms. Harris. The last time Mr Trump debated a woman was Hillary Clinton, his 2016 rival. He Calling her a “nasty woman”. and followed her on stage, but her aides thought she was relatively quiet by Mr. Trump’s standards.
Aides to Ms. Harris will be rooting for the 2020 version of Mr. Trump on Tuesday night.
Will a muted mix do for a muted discussion?
Aides to Ms. Harris tried but failed to change the rules of the debate to allow the candidates’ microphones to continue even when they were not speaking, in an effort to encourage Mr. Trump to interfere and interrupt when it was not his turn.
Advisers say that in private, Mr. Trump speaks more contemptuously of Ms. Harris than he does in public. He has Talked rudely About his romantic relationships and Ms Harris was recently accused of falsely embracing her black identity for political purposes. Mr. Trump’s advisers and allies have advised him to refrain from personal attacks in the debate, but many worry he won’t hold it.
How will Harris handle Trump’s surprise?
Ms. Harris’ 2019 primary debate performance came at a low point When Representative Tulsi Gabbard of Hawaii demanded that she apologize For her record as a California prosecutor — a moment for which Ms. Harris’s campaign had prepared her but she still found it difficult to respond effectively.
Ms. Harris has since proven adept at delivering set-piece attacks on Mr. Trump but has sometimes shown less skill in unscripted moments. She has sometimes struggled during interviews and in off-the-cuff moments, though she has grown as a political performer since her vice-presidential debut.
However, debating Mr. Trump is quite different from taking questions from a television anchor. Mr. Trump is an unpredictable television veteran who has shown no respect for the established rules of political fair play.
Ms. Harris has so far refused to engage with Mr. Trump’s attacks on her or his comments about her race and gender. Challenged to discuss how she fended off similar attacks on live TV, she memorably said “If you have something to say, say it to my face” – can determine how her performance is perceived.
Since Mr. Biden took office, Ms. Harris has built her campaign around a choice between the future (her) and the past (Mr. Trump). The debate could give her a chance to show voters not just that contrast, but how she reacts when given the chance to stand up to bullies.
Who gets a viral moment?
More than 50 million Americans watched the June debate between President Biden and Mr. Trump live, and Tuesday’s showdown is expected to draw an even larger audience. Millions more will consume the event in news coverage and social media feeds after the fact.
Those viewers are unlikely to watch the full 90 minutes, but they will be treated to key snippets – the best of which are known as debate moments. This is easy to remember from past discussions. Ronald Reagan told Walter Mondale in 1984: “I am not going to exploit my opponent’s youth and inexperience for political purposes.” Or four years ago, when Mr. Biden tried to deflect Mr. Trump’s frequent interruptions “Would you shut up, man?”
Of course, some key moments prove unhelpful for candidates. During a 1992 debate with Bill Clinton, President George HW Bush was criticized for looking bored while checking his watch. In 2000, George W. Al Gore’s audible sigh during the debate with Bush was mocked. And Mitt Romney’s attempt to explain the relative paucity of women appointed as governor of Massachusetts in 2012 by saying he’s got “binders full of women” drew attacks from President Barack Obama’s campaign.
Will Trump tie Harris to Biden?
The Trump team has an overriding objective for the debate. They want, more than anything, the viewing audience to end the night with the impression that Ms. Harris is responsible for every unsavory aspect of Mr. Biden’s record.
Trump’s advisers want her to be associated in voters’ minds with high grocery prices, wars in Ukraine and the Middle East, and undocumented migrants crossing the border.
Mr. Trump has repeatedly blamed the Biden administration and Ms. Harris for the influx of migrants and has often Made false or exaggerated claims. Look for Ms. Harris to blame Mr. Trump for pushing Republicans to kill legislation aimed at reforming the immigration system and strengthening border security.
Will Harris distance himself from Biden?
Ms. Harris also has the delicate task of remaining loyal to Mr. Biden, but also distancing herself from him. Undecided voters in battleground states are disproportionately sour about the economy and pessimistic about the state of the country and hungry for change. Advisers to both candidates understand the need to be someone who engages with voter change.
Harris Roe v. How will Trump target Wade?
Ms. Harris will likely take offense on abortion — a policy area that Mr. Trump sees as his biggest political weakness.
The vice president has been reminding voters for weeks that it was Mr. Trump who changed the Supreme Court that overturned Roe v. Wade was overturned. She Advertised “For years, they’ve been trying to end Roe v. Wade and I did it, and I’m proud that I did it,” he said over the weekend, showing footage of Mr. Trump.
She may also bring up the fact that Mr. Trump once suggested women get abortions must be punished, a position he soon rejected.
Mr. Trump will try to sow doubts about the issue, saying he wants to leave abortion policy up to the states. And he will probably play his support for In In vitro fertilization treatmentA position in which he broke with some abortion opponents.
How will they talk about the economy?
Mr Trump has prepared to hammer Mrs Harrison over high prices lingering from the high inflation of the early Biden administration – and to recall voters’ memories of when life was more affordable before the Covid pandemic. She is expected to bring more liberal policy positions that Ms. Harris adopted during her first campaign for president in 2019, but has since abandoned, including a ban on fracking seen as a deadly problem in Pennsylvania. A critical swing position.
Ms. Harris will likely try to deflect these attacks by reminding voters of the mess the country was in when Mr. Trump handed over power to her and Mr. Biden — with the economy still in partial shutdown due to the pandemic and many millions more Americans collecting unemployment checks. Based on her recent public comments, she will then admit that prices are still too high and explain her proposals to address the cost of living.
What role will race and gender play?
While he wants to return to the White House, Mr. Trump is the latest in a long line of white men running for president of the United States. Ms. Harris aspires to be the first woman and second person of color to hold the office.
But unlike Mrs. Clinton in 2016, Mrs. Harris has shied away from an overt embrace of the historic nature of her candidacy — especially when Mr. Trump accused her of misrepresenting her racial identity.
However she manages to attack Mr. Trump will inevitably be seen through the prism of a black and South Asian woman debating a white man, and voters’ perceptions of that exchange could go a long way in shaping how Americans view the debate.
Post The Harris-Trump Debate: 90 High-Stakes Minutes on Election Day appeared first New York Times.