Showdown in Philly: Three Key Questions that Will Shape the Harris-Trump Debate

September 10, 2024, 12:22 pm 897 Views 31 Comments

Vice President Kamala Harris and Donald Trump scheduled for a presidential debate on September 10, 2024 (courtesy photos)

Amid all the polls, punditry, and psychopathology, America’s 2024 presidential campaign boils down to this:

  • If Kamala Harris wins, we’ll undoubtedly have another election in 2028.

  • If Donald Trump wins, we quite possibly will not.

“A vote for Donald Trump may mean the last election that you ever get to vote in,” said former Rep. Liz Cheney. “A vote for Donald Trump is a vote against the Constitution.”

Leader of the House of Representative’s encyclopedic investigation of the January 6 seditious riot, Cheney has emerged as the most visible, and most clearly spoken, among the small group of Republicans warning of the dangers of a second Trump White House term.

Eight weeks before Election Day, Trump and Harris are set to meet on Tuesday in what may be their only debate, as new polling shows the race tied, nationally and in each of the toss-up states — making Cheney’s bid to convince even a few Republican voters to cross partisan lines and back the Democratic vice president a slim-chance, but potentially crucial, effort.

The 90-minute debate at Philadelphia’s National Constitutional Center is scheduled to air on ABC channels (KEYT-3 in Santa Barbara) and stream on ABC News Live at 6 p.m. PDT.

The event extends a summer of momentous political drama that began with Joe Biden’s ruinous performance in a similar debate against Trump less than three months ago. It led the president to withdraw from his reelection campaign, replaced by Harris.

A six-week burst of Democratic enthusiasm followed, including a spirited Chicago convention, but the race against Trump now has resettled into the coin-flip contest it was before Biden’s debacle, a familiar shape aligned with the nation’s bitter, volatile, schismatic political culture.

With an audience of perhaps 60 million for the debate, and countless more for the deluge of commentary to follow, both candidates know that a single exchange can determine who is deemed the “winner” of the event, as much as any substantive policy discussion.

Here are three key questions that will influence the outcome.

Who Is Kamala Harris?

By far, Harris faces the biggest challenge — and the greatest opportunity — simply because she remains an unknown to many Americans: nearly one in three voters in the latest New York Times poll said they want to know more about her, compared to just 9 percent who said this of Trump, about whom most people’s opinions settled long ago.

With only one national debate in her résumé — her 2020 fly face-off with then–Vice President Mike Pence — Harris faces a very complicated task of communicating multiple messages: her own biography, for starters. She also faces questions about how she differs on policy from Biden, as well as how she has changed since her failed 2019 bid.

The biggest risk: how to react and interact with Trump. Harris needs to stand up to his bullying, in part to demonstrate strength fitting for a Commander in Chief, but must guard against getting dragged into the mud by his expected insults and lies. Harris has long boasted that she would “prosecute the case” against Trump, but it seems far more important to speak directly to voters about what she will do to make their lives better.

Which Trump will show up?

Trump’s caustic buffoonery and daft word-salad pronouncements make it tempting to underestimate him. That is a mistake. First and foremost, presidential debates are Big Television Events, and the longtime reality show star is first and foremost a master TV performer who understands the medium and how to make himself the center of the story.

It’s worth remembering that this will be his seventh presidential debate, more than anyone in history; save for one truly crazed display in 2020, when he secretly was afflicted with COVID, Trump has never hurt himself with that half of the country that supports him — despite verdicts by Beltway big brains that he “lost” to Biden in 2020 and to Hillary Clinton in 2016.

That said, Trump’s strategists are fervently urging and hoping that he restrain his trademark racist, misogynistic, and other personal insults against Harris, in favor of pounding her relentlessly over the economy and immigration, two crucial issues on which voters award him higher marks, as well as the deadly and chaotic U.S. pullout from Afghanistan in 2021, a pivotal event in Biden’s presidency that the Republican has exploited in recent weeks.

What Issues Will Be Centered?

How Harris finesses attacks on policies that represent credible weaknesses, like the economy and immigration, and pivots to more favorable issues, will be consequential.

The more the debate focuses on three other matters, the more she will benefit:

  • Abortion rights. Trump’s peripatetic efforts to reposition himself over abortion (from loud boasts about his three appointed Supreme Court justices torpedoing Roe v. Wade to claims that people are “absolutely thrilled” with states deciding the matter to now vowing a second term would be “great for women and their reproductive rights”) are telling, because most Americans support the Democratic position. Harris should make him own the high court decision and broaden the issue, explaining the threat Trump poses to contraception, IVF, and other women’s health concerns.

  • Project 2025. One surprise in the New York Times poll is that Harris attacks about “Project 2025” appear to have broken through into the political mainstream. Trump has tried hard to distance himself from Project 2025, a 900-page document produced by the right-wing Heritage Foundation, three-quarters of which was written by first-term Trump advisers. Among other things, it calls for seizing an unprecedented amount of executive power over the entire government; banning the abortion pill; using the military to deport 11 million immigrants and refugees; ending student loan forgiveness; eliminating Head Start; removing millions from federal low-income health care rolls; and cutting taxes for the wealthy and raising them on the middle class. Harris should aggressively play offense here.

  • The future. Winning presidential campaigns most often represent change. Harris is strangely positioned, at once the fresh face, representative of a new generation of leaders sounding themes about the future, while also the governing partner of an historically unpopular president. She walks a fine line, in embracing administration successes while distancing herself from Biden on less popular matters. Trump will help on this front, if he returns to his well-worn obsession with the 2020 election, not to mention his promise to wage “bloody” roundups of political enemies.

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Written by Jerry Roberts

“Newsmakers” is a multimedia journalism platform that focuses on politics, media and public affairs in Santa Barbara. Learn more at newsmakerswithjr.com

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31 Comments

  1. It still honestly makes me shudder to consider that there’s actually a chance, a good chance, that half of Americans consider a proven liar, admitted and proud sexual abuser, 3-time (at least) wife cheater, convicted felon and fraud who has said out right on multiple occasions that he thinks our veterans aren’t worthy and has told “Christians” to vote for him so they “won’t need to vote again” if he wins and has proudly bragged about his positive relationships with the world’s dictators and has openly suggested he will imprison those who oppose him politically and will deport all illegal immigrants regardless of their contributions to our economy and familial ties to our land, to be the best choice to run our nation.

    Tell me again how educated and compassionate these people are…..?

    3

    • Don’t forget page 2 of the cult leader’s CV that displays his business acumen.

      Six Chapter 11 bankruptcies: Trump Taj Mahal; Trump’s Castle; Trump Plaza Casinos; Trump Plaza Hotel; Trump Hotels & Casinos Resorts; Trump Entertainment Resorts

      Numerous Failed businesses:
      Trump Steaks; GoTrump; Trump Airlines; Trump Vodka; Trump Mortgage; Trump: The Game; Trump Magazine; Trump University; Trump Ice; The New Jersey Generals; Tour de Trump; Trump Network; Trumped!

      4

    • Thanks for answering my question, “Doc.”

      Tell us you don’t know what “checks and balances” mean without telling us you don’t know what “checks and balances” means.

      “It’ll be ok” for you white, boat-owning “doctors” who live in SB, but believe it or not, there are MILLIONS of Americans out there who don’t have the same luxury. Not surprising you haven’t a clue how others live and deal with historic oppression.

      1

    • Crazy run-on, flight-of-ideas sentence dude. We see where you’re coming from. Might I suggest you not stress out so much. It’ll be ok. Checks and balances. We live in a great country, not perfect, but great. Think not too high, not too low…no matter what the outcome is. And don’t forget to vote. It may help your state of mind to just submit your absentee ballot as soon as humanly possible too.

      -2

  2. The majority of Americans lean towards the Democratic Party. If we abolished the electoral college (which was created to appease southern slaveowners so they wouldn’t start another civil war) the Dems would win 100% of the time and it would force the GOP to move back to their moderate stance. About 66% of the American population showed up to vote in 2020. If that number leans closer to 80%, Kamala Harris will win in a landslide.

    3

    • SBSURFERLIFE – I really hope you’re right! Unfortunately, we also do have a large segment of the far left still so upset about Biden’s handling of Israel/Gaza they plan to protest vote. I know a few and have tried in vain to talk sense into them. Hopefully, it’s just a fringe few on the nation-wide scale, but we need every vote we can get.

      Unlike the out of touch bubble dwellers like to say, this nation will not be “ok” with a Trump presidency. There’s far too much evidence that it would usher an end to democracy as we know it and as our forefathers intended it.

      This is by far not just another relatively inconsequential choice between red and blue.

      1

  3. It is absolutely mind-boggling that anyone with more than three functioning neurons could listen to the incoherent word salads and blatant toxic utterances of the orange moron, and still consider him fit for any sort of position of responsibility.

    3

  4. JFK Jr., Tusli Gabbard, Vivek Ramaswamy, Elon Musk and many more grasp the choice of Trump or Kamala- All of the above mentioned are ANTI-Establishment and ANTI-Deep State as well as 50% of Americans. It’s about proven policies that Trump’s Administration was somewhat successful with DESPITE crazy accusations of “Russian Collusion” that were ALL dismissed as the Democratics favorite term called “misinformation”….

    -2

  6. Some notes of mine to a friend during the debate:

    ha ha ha! she got him wound up by criticizing his rallies and their attendance.
    there’s trump going on immigrants eating pets…

    [please see reports that no reports about this have been made. Just search this for many reports: “news immigrants eating pets”]
    [please see news that ‘immigrants taking over apartment buildings’ is untrue: search “news immigrants taking over apartment buildings]

    got inflation ? Fire the economists! LOL
    (Just like if you don’t test for Covid there isn’t any)

    I literally laughed out loud
    ‘she wants trans operations on criminal immigrants’ ha ha ha

    He’s defending himself by citing ORBAN?!?!?!?
    now: biden hates her

    “I said that?”
    re: election loss
    o my frigging gods

    I think she did well. He was pretty controlled, most of the time. He sure got heated a few times and told a ton of lies, as always.

    2

    • Do you actually hold the position that Trump and his people have not already attempted to interfere with elections?

      This has been proven in multiple ways and conclusively.

      If he gets back to the WH will he attempt to literally halt all future elections? No, obviously not. Nobody is saying that–well, he does love to hint at it, but it’s just another lie that he floats to keep his lunatic base activated.

      Also, it’s fear “mongering”.

      2

    • For fearmongering, consider Trump’s entire rant last night, about immigrants eating your pets, other countries sending their criminals so their crime rates are going down and ours are going up, Kamala Harris being a marxist and destroying the country, and on and on. Every word from him is a lie, and the same for his supporters and defenders.

      1

    • ANON – He didn’t have the Supreme Court in his pocket last time. That and other reasons that his ACTUAL ATTEMPT to “stop any future elections” as you say was thwarted on Jan 6.

      Despite what you’ve been brainwashed to believe, facts do matter.

      1

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