The United States second presidential debate, aired live on television on September 10th, was watched by over 65 million people across the country. In an election that is likely going to be won by a tiny percentage of undecided voters, the debate was a turning point in the presidential election. Now that we know that former president Trump has refused to participate in another presidential debate, the stakes were all that much higher.
Preceding this debate, the Democratic Party was met with a nightmare performance from current President Joe Biden during the first presidential debate. Biden started stumbling from the get-go, and appeared weak and hoarse, an image that one never wants to portray during a presidential debate. Since then, current Vice President Kamala Harris replaced Biden as the current Democratic Party nominee, gained massive traction in the polls, and faced off against her opponent, former president Donald Trump for the first time in Philadelphia.
The Harris/Trump debate, hosted by ABC News, set the stage for both presidential candidates to present themselves to the nation. From the opening moments, where Harris strode across the stage and basically forced Trump to shake her hand, she controlled the debate, and had her opponent on his back foot the entire time. Throughout the debate, the Vice President talked about her plans for the future and how she doesn’t want to go back to the irresponsible Trump administration. Comparatively, the former President wailed about how America is a failing nation, and how under his control, we will go back to being the international superpower we once were. Their two messages couldn’t be more polar, with Harris bringing us into the future, and Trump dragging us back to the past.
Viewers also tuned in to hear what each candidate thought about key issues surrounding the election, namely the economy, immigration, and abortion. These topics were especially important for Harris to address, as she is a new candidate, relatively speaking, and many undecided voters were interested in getting to know her and what she stands for. Indeed, the Vice President made a passionate speech about the effect of Roe v. Wade being overturned, leading to many states banning abortion entirely, some with no exceptions for rape or incest. “A survivor of a crime, a violation to their body, does not have the right to make a decision about what happens to their body next,” Harris said, going on to declare the immorality of the issue, and her promise that if Congress were to pass a bill reinstating Roe v. Wade, she will “proudly” sign it. In contrast, Trump disowned the results in the states that banned abortion, and went on the attack falsely claiming, “[the democrats] have abortion in the ninth month. [The Governor of West Virginia] said the baby will be born and we will decide what to do with the baby. In other words, we'll execute the baby.” One of the moderators, Linsey Davis, responded to Trump's outlandish claim with “There is no state in this country where it is legal to kill a baby after it's born”, one of several fact checks in the debate.
The contrast between the arguments from the two candidates were starkly obvious. Harris talked about her economic plans for the country, including a 50,000 dollar tax credit for small businesses while, when pressed, Trump allowed that he had “a concept of a plan” to rid the United States of Medicare. Not only did Harris sound more confident, she also appeared more confident, willing to look Trump in the face and smile at what he said, while the entire debate Trump was scowling down at his podium. The way one presents themselves in a presidential debate is very important, and it can lead to a loss or gain of thousands of votes as people look for a strong and confident leader. Vice President Harris presented herself as that leader, and according to an article from CNN, her campaign felt that she improved her chances among 200,000 voters in several key swing states. Although official polling from after the debate still has not been released yet, a poll conducted by The Washington Post of likely swing state voters found that 23 people thought that Harris performed better in the debate, compared to just 2 who thought Trump performed better.
While polls like these aren’t truly accurate of the population at large, similar polls administered by many different media outlets have seen similar results, indicating that Harris is in fact gaining supporters in key states from her debate performance, a likely indicator that she is the true victor of the debate.
Sources:
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/trump-harris-debate-abc-ratings-2024/
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2024/09/11/presidential-debate-takeaways/
https://www.cnn.com/2024/09/11/politics/harris-trump-debate-analysis/index.html
https://www.cnn.com/2024/09/10/politics/speaking-times-harris-trump-debate-dg/index.html
https://www.npr.org/2024/06/28/g-s1-6953/presidential-debate-analysis-trump-biden
https://www.washingtonpost.com/elections/interactive/2024/presidential-debate-voter-poll/
4 comments:
I think that the Trump and to a lesser extent the Republican Party's reliance on fear mongering is becoming ineffective in comparison to Kamala Harris arguments and plans for the future. This was seen largely in the debate between Trump's lies on stage about a declining America, Vs. Kamala and her preach for a brighter future-one that has ultimately been effective in sewing hope in the young minds in which the election is dependent on, when also combined with her social-media strategies. I agree with your points on how Kamala controlled the debate, and kept the focus on Trump and his mistakes/personal flaws--which is completely unsurprising due to her career as a prosecutor. All aside, I do believe a lot of the success the Democratic Party attained on this debate in particular, was some due to Kamala's prep and strategies, but obviously due to the stark contrast from last debate between Biden and Trump-- where the performance was so poor on the behalf of democrats that it channeled a last-minute ticket switch. I think what is of interest now, is if Trump will agree to a second presidential debate--as Kamala has willfully obliged to a second debate in late Octobe. Given the response from Trump's campaign covering up his botched performance, I doubt this will be allowed to happen-- however if it does, another debate could cause the same percentage changes/polling impacts we have seen in the week's following the Harris-Trump debate.
Winning a debate is hard. What I have concluded overall is that Harris "won" in the sense that she exceeded expectations and brought back confidence in the Democrats that she was the right (or at least a very good) candidate to pick. Like Michela mentioned, Trump did do a lot of fear mongering, hand-waving, and overall waffling, and seemed very very intent on defeating Kamala in the debate, rather than promote his overall message to a broader audience and to connect to the viewers back home, something Kamala did much more often and effectively.
I still think it's important to recognize that a debate isn't really "won" in a traditional sense; for example ABC did not declare Harris the winner of the debate. Rather, as a result of a debate, public sentiment and interest shifts, and various undecided voters (potentially) make up their mind, or at least get a taste and glimpse of both candidates. Unfortunately however, the impact of this debate truly remains to be seen; the American political landscape has kinda devolved into individuals voting for their preferred "team" (political party) rather than for the candidate that they consider overall better, leading to less votes being changed come ballot day.
The "Republicans for Harris" campaign or movement is trying to break against this norm though, and I think that's super cool and more people should vote for who they genuinely want in office to inspire confidence into the Union.
I feel like the two candidates' debate tactics were very different but in the end Kamala argued much stronger in comparison to Trump. I feel like she did a better job of presenting her political agenda. I agree with Alex's comment that Kamala was able to prove that she was a good candidate to replace Biden. She was very confident in the debate and defended her points very strongly and countered Trump's arguments as well. Trump's points in the debate were not well defended as they came with several false claims as seen through the fact checking done by the mediators. I feel like the fact checking was a really interesting and wise aspect because that way voters watching the debate know when a claim is actually false.
I like how you brought up the fact that Kamala demonstrated the confidence to look Trump in the face as she talked, as well as approach him before reporting to her podium to greet him with a handshake, whereas Trump never once looked at Kamala and seemed to instead aggressively speak to the moderators the entirety of the debate. A historical moment I was reminded of that supports your claim that a political candidate's portrayal of themselves in debates can most definitely sway voter opinion is the Nixon and Kennedy debate of 1960. During the debate, Kennedy appeared calm and composed, while Nixon looked unwell as he was recovering from a sickness. This contrast contributed to Kennedy's strong performance in the debates and helped him gain an edge in public perception, ultimately leading to his presidential win. This election result emphasized the importance of one's media image as a presidential canadidate, as human beings are unconciously judgemental and consequently care for the presentation of those who wish to run their country.
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