Tucker Scott ‘26
Staff Writer
On Tuesday, September 10th Donald Trump and Kamala Harris met in Pennsylvania for the first, and possibly last, presidential debate. And the bar for both these candidates was high. For Trump he was finally given a chance to go on offense in front of his opposition in a nationally televised manner. Plus, given that the last time he debated he ended a president’s run, the pressure was high. For Kamala the pressure was likewise extremely high. She had to explain her policy positions to the American people and attempt to make the argument that she was a candidate of change, rather than just Joe Biden’s second term. So, did anything important happen or massively change thanks to this debate?
No. The debate was honestly quite boring. If I had to give my two cents neither candidate really won or lost the debate. The Harris camp was hoping that Trump would literally explode on stage. That didn’t happen. Trump basically kept his cool and didn’t give Harris her “I’m speaking” moment. And the Trump camp was hoping that Harris would say something extremely divisive. That didn’t happen either. Harris basically said her speech and didn’t give Trump his “No Americans died under my watch” moment. I think Trump came off as rambling and Harris came off as obnoxious. Now surprisingly this actually helps Trump because Harris is the “new” candidate. She’s the clean new shiny candidate on the block. And every stain is extremely noticeable. Trump is a mud monster. Nothing new can be said about him because we already know everything about him. He’s been in politics for a decade, and in the public eye for half a century. Opinions of Trump have, do, and will not or ever change.
So do I think the debate has changed anything? No, but I think it lowered expectations for Kamala Harris. Harris has been claiming and campaigning and her supporters and surrogates have been hyping her up as going to prosecute the case against Donald Trump. That she’d be able to twist and turn him into a pretzel and make a strong case to the American people that he is unfit for office. And on that stage she really did nothing. She said her lines and got under Trump’s skin, but overall did she change the race in any radical or substantial way? Will we be talking about or even remember this debate in a few days? No, I don’t think so. So if you believe that Kamala Harris has to just keep doing what she’s doing and she’ll win the election then she had a fine night. But if you believe, as I do, that Kamala Harris needed to have that knockout night, like she did the first time she debated Joe Biden in 2019, then the debate was a greatly missed opportunity.
On the other hand, this was alleviated by the fact that Trump also missed a lot of opportunities to deal some huge damage to Harris that would have put him in an excellent position. His closing statement of “why didn’t you do it” was great, but it should have been the first thing he said. He allowed himself to get distracted and allowed her to get under his skin on obvious traps like crowd sizes and January 6th while ignoring some important attacks. For example when Harris said she did not regret pulling out of Afghanistan, the only thing he should have said was, “You don’t regret letting 13 American soldiers die?” Fair attack or not, there is no question that it would have thrown Harris for a loop that I’m not sure she could have ever recovered from. If he said that, frankly, he would have most likely won not only the debate but the presidency. Now that’s not to say Trump didn’t get in some good lines or some good hits, he did. For example when he pointed out that Harris had been running away from everything she’s previously argued in favor of, and had been copying a lot of Trump’s policies. But they were overshadowed by frustration that he missed so many openings, as well as the overall fact that he was largely discombobulated in his attacks and the general boringness of this debate.
In the end, nothing really changed. Still one in three voters want to know more about Kamala Harris and her policy. The polls are still too tight to call. Maybe things will change in the VP debate between Senator J.D. Vance and Governor Tim Walz. I’m certainly hoping that the debate will be more substantive. But in the end this election will come down to whether or not the American people are content to vote based on vibes, or whether we demand a bit more substance from our politicians.
Featured image courtesy of Financial Times
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