 "Kamala Harris-Donald Trump debate: Who won and does it impact election outcome?")
The debate between Vice President Kamala Harris and former president Donald Trump is in the books.
Harris began by marching across the debate stage and introducing herself to Trump.
The two had never met.
“Kamala Harris,” she said. “Let’s have a good debate.”
“Nice to see you. Have fun,” Trump responded.
Going into the debate, Trump and Harris were essentially tied in the polls.
Vice President Kamala Harris repeatedly baited former president Donald Trump over his 2020 election defeat, the January 6 insurrection at the US Capitol, abortion, his handling of COVID-19 and the size of his rallies – and Trump kept falling for it. Though the consensus seems to be that Harris decisively beat Trump, experts say that debates really don’t sway voters one way or another
A New York Times/Sienna poll of likely voters across America showed Trump leading Harris 48 to 47 per cent – echoing the results of a similar poll taken in late July.
In the seven battleground states that will decide the election, Harris is either locked in a dead heat with Trump or is slightly ahead, according to other pollsters.
But what happened? Who won the debate? And do debates have any impact on the elections?
Let’s take a closer look:
What happened?
What many Republicans feared prior to the showdown is exactly what happened.
Harris baited Trump repeatedly about his election defeat in 2020, the insurrection at the US Capitol on January, 6, abortion, his handling of COVID-19 and the size of his rallies.
Impact Shorts
More Shorts“You did in fact lose that election,” Harris said. “Donald Trump was fired by 81 million people.”
Harris said she had spoken to foreign leaders who “are laughing at Donald Trump” and military leaders to “say you’re a disgrace.”
Trump couldn’t stop himself from taking the bait.
The former president yet again denied losing in 2020 to US president Joe Biden, tried to pass the buck for January 6 to Nancy Pelosi and the Washington Mayor and boosted false rumours of Haitian immigrants eating pets – which the debate moderator pointedly stated is not happening.
Immigrants, Trump claimed, have “destroyed the fabric of our country.”
He again attacked Harris on race – which many commentators and people from his own party had practically begged him not to do.
“I read where she was not Black,” Trump said. “And then I read that she was Black.” He seemed to suggest her race was a choice, saying twice, “That’s up to her.”
Trump also repeatedly attempted to tie Harris to Biden.
“She is Biden,” he said.
“The worst inflation we’ve ever had,” Trump added. “A horrible economy because inflation has made it so bad. And she can’t get away with that.”
Harris responded: “Clearly, I am not Joe Biden and I am certainly not Donald Trump. And what I do offer is a new generation of leadership for our country.”
Who won?
The consensus seems to be that Harris defeated Trump and decisively at that.
A CNN/ SSRS poll taken immediately after the debate quoted an overwhelming majority of voters as saying Harris won.
Sixty-three per cent of those polled said Harris emerged the winner, while just 37 per cent said the same for Trump.
The poll has a margin of error of 5.3 per cent.
The Washington Post polled a group of undecided, swing-state voters immediately after the debate concluded.
The voters, regardless of their preference for either candidate, thought Harris won.
Of the dozen voters who said they would “probably” vote for Harris prior to the debate, five said they would now “definitely” do so.
The rest retained their “probably” stance.
The nine voters who said they would “probably” vote for Trump prior to the debate, none said they would now “definitely” do so.
In fact, two said they would not “probably” vote for Harris. A third said their vote would now go to a third party.
Users on Polymarket, a platform on which people can bet on real-world event outcomes using crypto, gave the nod to Harris.
Users on the platform said there is a 98 per cent chance that polls taken in the days after the debate will show Harris won.
They gave Harris a 59 per cent chance to be the Polymarket election contract favourite tomorrow.
Harris will be declared the winner by Polymarket if an Ipsos/538 opinion poll taken the same day shows she did better than Trump.
Around $860 million has been bet on the US presidential election already, as per Polymarket.
The pundits seem to agree.
“If debates are won and lost on which candidate best takes advantage of issues where they are strong - and defends or deflects on areas of weakness - Tuesday night tilted in favour of the vice-president,” Anthony Zurcher wrote for BBC.
“Time and time again as the evening progressed, Harris put Trump on the defensive with jabs and barbs that he could have ignored but seemingly felt compelled to address.”
Stephen Collinson wrote for CNN, “From the opening moments Tuesday night, when the vice president strode over to Trump’s podium and all but forced him to shake her hand, she dictated the terms of their critical clash exactly eight weeks before Election Day. From Harris’ point of view, the night could hardly have gone better.”
Former New Jersey governor Chris Christie, working for ABC as a political commentator, slammed Trump as “unprepared,” as per India Today.
“Whoever did the debate preparation for Donald Trump should be fired,” Christie said. “Trump better get to work, or he’s going to lose this election.”
Christie also praised Harris.
“She was exquisitely well prepared, she laid traps, and he chased every rabbit down every hole instead of talking about the things that he should have been talking about. This is the difference between someone who is well prepared and someone who is unprepared,” he told ABC.
Republican strategist John Feehery told Al Jazeera that Harris appeared to “get under Trump’s skin.”
“I think that, at the end of the day, what Trump was trying to was project strength, project the idea that he had a winning economy back when he was president,” he told Al Jazeera.
“I think that [on] style points, I would give the edge to Harris because I think that it was her first time being introduced to the public. She had a kind of a tough start, but she seemed to get her stride.”
“And after that, it was just kind of a both sides kind of wailing and wailing on each other.”
Democratic strategist Ashley Bryant Bailey told Al Jazeera that Harris “came to do the job she has been prepared to do her entire career.”
“She litigated tonight with precision and it’s exactly what we expected to do,” Bailey added. “I think Trump was absolutely outmatched. He took the bait flawlessly. I think she effortlessly, really, went in on all of the points.”
Even commentators on Fox News had to admit that Harris won.
Harris was “well prepared, had answers and knew where she was going,” Fox political analyst Brit Hume said. “She baited him successfully,” Hume added. “She came out ahead in this, in my opinion. No doubt.”
Hume also called it a “bad night” for Trump.
“Make no mistake, Trump had a bad night. We heard so many of his old grievances. This was Kamala Harris’ night,” Hume said.
Harold Ford Jr, another Fox commentator, put it more succinctly.
“Tonight, she won,” he said.
But perhaps the biggest win for Harris on Wednesday came after the debate when pop superstar Taylor Swift took to Instagram to endorse the Vice President.
“I will be casting my vote for Kamala Harris and Tim Walz in the 2024 Presidential Election. I’m voting for @kamalaharris because she fights for the rights and causes I believe need a warrior to champion them.”
The message was signed: “Taylor Swift, Childless Cat Lady.”
Do they impact elections?
Debates seemingly matter in the outcome of the presidential election – except for when they don’t.
Let’s take a look at recent elections.
Recall how Biden’s terrible performance in the June debate devastated his re-election hopes to the point that the sitting president dropped out of the race.
While Biden dropping out has completely upended the race, no one can safely predict who will win the 2024 race.
In 2020, Biden’s ‘will you shut up man’ retort to Trump during the first presidential debate summed up the mood of the nation – and some claim put him on the path to victory.
In 2016, Hillary Clinton was declared the winner of all three debates by the pundits, pollsters and voters, but we all know how that turned out.
In 2012, Obama had a terrible first presidential debate with Mitt Romney, but came back to win the second and third presidential debates.
Obama similarly was thought to have won the debates against John McCain.
John Kerry was thought to have handily defeated George W Bush in the 2004 debates, but it was the sitting president that prevailed.
Though Al Gore is said to have bettered bush in their clashes, Bush ultimately won at the polls.
In the distant past, Ronald Reagan is thought to have won the election thanks to his debate performance against Jimmy Carter.
John F Kennedy similarly is thought to have ascended to the presidency on the strength of the debate – the first between presidential candidates shown on TV – against Richard M Nixon.
Most experts seem to think that debates have a negligible impact on voters – except in a few instances.
“People aren’t really watching debates because they’re like, ‘I’m gonna take this time and really compare these two candidates on their merits,’” Yanna Krupnikov, a political scientist at Stony Brook University told Scientific American.
Krupnikov said most people have essentially made up their minds about how they are going to vote.
Aaron Kall, director of debate at the University of Michigan, speaking to NewsNation, said debates can make a difference when candidates are essentially tied.
Kall pointed to the Bush-Gore debates as proof.
“George W. Bush got a lot of mileage out of those debates and ended up winning a really close election,” Kall said.
“Even if it doesn’t move the needle very much, debates have the ability to potentially shift enough undecided voters to have a big impact, and if not the debate itself, the debate then drives future media cycles, fundraising and other things that has the cumulative big effect on some low-information or undecided voters,” Kall added.
Harvard Business School Associate professor Vincent Pons and assistant professor Caroline Le Pennec-Caldichoury of the University of California at Berkeley, looked at 56 TV debates in 31 elections across 10 nations.
They found that debates seem to have little impact on voters.
“I was surprised,” Pons told Scientific American. “If you look at the numbers of people watching TV debates and at all the media attention around debates, you would think debates matter.”
“There’s this perception that debates are this great democratic tool where voters can find out what candidates stand for and how good they really are,” Pons added. “But we find that debates don’t have any effect on any group of voters.”
The CNN piece too pointed out that the impact of debates isn’t usually felt for days or weeks afterwards.
“Candidates who triumph on the debate stage don’t always win the election. Both Trump in 2016 and President George W. Bush in 2004 were judged to have lost debates but went on to win the White House,” the piece noted.
Ironcially, the first showdown between Harris and Trump in Philadelphia may also be their last.
The Harris team has called for a second debate immediately afterwards.
“Under the bright lights, the American people got to see the choice they will face this fall at the ballot box: between moving forward with Kamala Harris, or going backwards with Trump,” Jen O’Malley Dillon, the head of Harris’s campaign, said in a statement as per Al Jazeera.
“That’s what they saw tonight and what they should see at a second debate in October. Vice President Harris is ready for a second debate. Is Donald Trump?
The former president, however, remained non-committal.
Trump said he was unsure about a rematch and that only those who lose debates call for it – which to be fair is the conventional wisdom.
“They immediately called for a second because they lost,” Trump said. “So, we’ll, you know, think about that. But she immediately called for a second,” Trump said.
The BBC piece noted how the Harris campaign, until this debate ended, had not agreed to another clash with Trump.
“That alone should indicate how well the Democrats think Tuesday night went for Harris,” the piece concluded.
With inputs from agencies
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