Across the networks, throughout all the media, and among politicians from both parties, Vice-President Kamala Harris was declared the winner in the Tuesday night presidential debate. As he does with respect to everything in his life, only Donald Trump emphatically saw things differently. Whether it is crowd size, wealth, or supporters, Donald Trump never recognizes that anyone or anything can be better than him. Even many of his own staff—privately—admitted that former President Trump lost the debate. The question, however, is, does it matter.
Winning the debate and presenting herself to the American people was extremely important to Harris. In this she clearly succeeded. Her demeanor, her content, and her character did wonders for her supporters and many seeking to gain re-enforcement about her ability to govern. While some of her answers were somewhat lacking in detail, there was only mild criticism of her presentation. She made no major mis-speaks. The debate had been hers to lose, and she won.
Former President Trump made a traditional Trump presentation. His content was minimal, and he did not answer many direct questions; would he veto a national abortion bill, does he support Ukraine, or did he admit that he did not win the 2020 election? Furthermore, Trump choose to cite Hungary’s Prime Minister Viktor Orban as a leading world leader whom he valued and who praised Trump’s leadership ability. Trump lost his best issue, immigration, by persisting in pushing the absurdity that Haitian immigrants in Ohio were eating local citizens’ household pets; something he proudly admitted having gleaned from watching television.
At the end of the day this debate—no matter how well many people believe that the Vice-President did—comes down to the issue of “so what and “who cares”. For Harris, this debate is only important if it moved critical voting blocs in key swing states. Did this debate sway significant “undecided” voters in key states? Did the debate move some of Trump’s supporters in swing states to question whether to continue to support his campaign for re-election?
Polls will be published over the weekend which will indicate whether Harris increased her support in the swing states. How those number look to both Trump and Harris will ultimately determine as well whether there will be a second debate, even though Trump until now has declared he will not debate again. Harris may believe that after her first debate victory she once again will be able to unnerve Trump in another debate, while Trump’s ego may drive him to improve his poor showing in the first round.
There are 54 days left until Election Day. Both candidates will evaluate how best to spend their time to secure a victory on November 5th. Trump undoubtedly will run cocky, and Harris will run doggedly, but they both need to calculate how to emerge victorious.
There is a further very important conclusion which this debate produced. Many candidates running down ballot will be affected by the debate. For Harris, who was only becoming better known, the solid nature of her performance probably had a very strengthening effect on Democrats running for House and Senate seats. For Republican aspirants as well as incumbents seeking reelection, the spinout on the debate did not give them much to campaign on, except continued loyalty to Trump.
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Taylor Swift
Taylor Swift’s endorsement was quite astonishing, perfectly timed, and not totally unexpected. It was remarkable as well that while she expressed her own preference for Harris, her most important message to her followers was that they register to vote.
Whether it will actually help Vice President Harris is unknown, but it clearly affected Swift’s over 283 million followers. One cannot predict how any individual Swift follower will respond to her Instagram story, but there have been a reported 337,000 of her individual followers who have turned-- within twelve hours of her urging--to the Vote.gov site she published to register to vote. Historical data has shown that 80% of those who register before a given election will vote--at least in that given year.
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