Debate Preview: What Each Candidate Needs to Do During Tonight's Debate
Tonight's debate is likely the only meeting between Harris and Trump, making this a high-stakes evening for both campaigns.
Tonight, Donald Trump and Kamala Harris will meet in Philadelphia for what will likely be the only debate between the two. Election day is only 55 days away and absentee ballots have started to drop for voters in some states, so this is a high stakes evening for both candidates.
The last six weeks have largely been defined by Harris’s red hot entrance into the race and rapid rise in the polls, however new polling over the weekend suggested her polling boost may be leveling off. Donald Trump on the other hand has largely weathered the Kamala storm but has struggled to gain traction without Biden in the race. The last debate between Biden and Trump back in June had an average audience of 51.3 million viewers and there are no indications that a second debate between Harris and Trump will happen. With the conventions behind us, this could be the last chance for each candidate to make their case in front of a large audience of Americans.
Before we dive into the top things I think each candidate needs to accomplish tonight, a brief word on how I view debates. I don’t believe that every debate has a winner and a loser and I actually hate using that frame to evaluate debates. If that was an effective way of analyzing a debate then Trump would never have become president because he “lost” all three debates to Hillary Clinton according to the media, pundits and a good number of voters who were polled following those debates.
Debates are about having a set of things that you need to accomplish in your 90 minutes on stage. It could be trying to shore up a vital weakness or trying to expose a weakness in your opponent in front of millions of voters. But any good candidate goes in with a short list of things they need to get done. So, in my view, both candidates could conceivably win or lose the debate or the candidate I think “won” is not always the same one the media crowns the winner.
You’re likely going to see two very different strategies tonight. Trump is well known but not popular. He’s been banging up against a ceiling in his support for years now so, for strategic reasons, I expect Trump to go very negative trying to drive up Harris’s unfavorables (which is easier than bringing his up). As we’ll see below, Harris is still unknown to many voters so tonight is an opportunity to introduce herself and show that she can stand up to Trump. With that in mind, these are the things I think each candidate needs to accomplish or avoid on stage tonight:
What Does Donald Trump Need to Do:
1.) Continue to Tie Harris to Biden. Donald Trump has had a frustrating couple of months. It’s clear Trump has struggled to find an effective attack on Harris and that’s in part because of Harris’s impressive discipline thus far. Of the few effective attacks he’s landed, tying Harris to Biden and the biggest perceived failures of the Administration is probably his most effective. The Biden Administration remains deeply unpopular with voters and being a member of the administration is probably her biggest liability. It’s also the attack that Harris will have the hardest time defending against.
A NYT/Siena poll released on Sunday highlights the danger for Harris on this issue. Voters overwhelmingly said the next president “should represent a major change from Joe Biden” (61%) yet 55% of voters said they believed Harris “represents more of the same” (vs. 34% for Trump). That’s a big vulnerability for Harris.
Harris clearly knows this which is why she’s tried to position herself as the underdog challenger who’s focused on the future, not the past (as Trump often is). A successful night for Trump would be repetitively tying her to the Biden Administration and its biggest perceived failures.
2.) Try Not to Make News on Abortion. According to the same NYT/Siena Poll mentioned above, voters reported that abortion was the second most important issue in deciding who to vote for in November, making it likely Trump’s biggest policy vulnerability. In the last few weeks Trump has made an absolute mess of the abortion issue. In the span of less than 24 hours Trump managed to take positions on both sides of the abortion debate, infuriating liberals and conservatives alike, leaving voters confused about what he would actually do as president. The same NYT/Siena poll showed that Harris held a 15-point lead on who voters trust more on abortion.
No matter what he says, Trump will not beat Harris on this issue. But the less news he makes on this the better for him (the flip side here is the more Harris can goad him on abortion the better for her). If he can find a way to come across as less radical than Democrats portray him on abortion without upsetting his base, that's a decent outcome for him.
3.) Don’t Let Harris Get Under His Skin. I will confess that I don’t believe that Donald Trump’s erratic and obnoxious behavior is a liability for him. A recording of the man bragging about sexually assaulting women played on loop for months and he still won the election in 2016. But this race is very close and the electorate is very polarized, meaning there aren’t many undecided voters left. Recent data suggests the profile of the average undecided voter is likely to be a non-white, college educated woman under the age of 45. Being overly aggressive, boorish or unhinged may not play well with that group. Tonight could be his last opportunity to communicate widely with undecided voters who may have outstanding negative views about him.
That said, the bar for Trump’s behavior is very low. It wouldn’t take much for Trump to make himself seem more disciplined than usual, which could help soothe undecided voters who have reservations about his judgment and temperament.
What Does Kamala Harris Need to Do?
1.) Make the case that she isn’t Biden. As I mentioned above, this election will likely come down to whether or not Harris can convince enough voters that she won’t just be a continuation of the Biden years. That’s a tall task for a candidate that is widely still unknown by many voters outside of being Joe Biden’s vice president. Harris has leaned heavily into a forward looking message that tells voters “we’re not going back.” She has used recent policy announcements on taxes, housing and grocery prices to put further daylight between her and Joe Biden. A successful night requires Harris to clearly communicate that she will chart her own course as president that will not be more of the same. More about tomorrow and less about yesterday.
If Donald Trump is on his game he’s going to attempt to tie Harris to Biden and try to make her answer for everything from border security to the tragic withdrawal from Afghanistan. The old adage in politics is that if you’re explaining you're losing. Harris needs to take her hits and pivot back to a forward looking message as quickly as she can. She did this effectively during her recent interview with CNN. There’s nothing to be gained by spending precious time explaining and defending.
2.) She should assume voters don’t know who she is. The NYT/Siena poll I’ve referenced several times had some good news and some worrying news for Harris. One of the positive tidbits was that she’s running neck and neck with Trump despite the fact that almost 30% of voters say they still need to learn more about her.
This tells me two things. First, voters might not know much about her but they’re keeping an open mind and giving her an opportunity. That’s great news for her and suggests she may not have hit her ceiling. And I think voters are keeping an open mind because of the second point, which is that Trump is really unpopular. That doesn’t mean he’ll lose (he was a historically unpopular president-elect in 2016) but his unpopularity has caused many voters to keep the door open to other options, like Harris.
The debate format is a difficult place to work in straight biographical material but she should find opportunities to introduce herself to voters who might be unfamiliar with her but are open to learning more (basically, push the messaging in this ad she’s running in battleground states).
3.) Freedom, Freedom and more Freedom. We all remember the now famous SNL skit from 2000 where Christpher Walken repeatedly demands “more cowbell!” Well, if I was Kamala Harris’s Bruce Dickenson I’d be demanding “more freedom!”
We might not be talking about a neck and neck race had Harris not grabbed the freedom narrative from Republicans so successfully. She has used “freedom” as a way of painting Donald Trump and his Republican allies as extreme. She has also released a tightly focused but highly popular policy agenda that’s centered around pocketbook issues like taxes, housing and consumer prices. The more voters hear about her top policy positions the more they like it. It’s imperative for Harris to find opportunities to clearly and forcefully communicate that she is the candidate of freedom in this race.
4.) It’s better to be ‘strong and wrong then weak and right.’ As I mentioned above, Donald Trump is not popular yet he continues to stay competitive in national elections. I believe part of the answer lies in what Bill Clinton once said: “When people are insecure, they’d rather have somebody who is strong and wrong than someone who’s weak and right.” Basically, voters will begrudgingly vote for the bully, even if they’re wrong on the issues, if they don’t feel like the “right” candidate can effectively stand up to the bully and protect them.
One of the easier tasks Harris has tonight is picking a few strategic fight with Trump, perhaps over issues she has the upper hand like abortion, defending democracy or the national debt. Harris needs to show voters an ability to stand up to Trump without sinking to his level and letting the debate devolve into a bar brawl. A debate that spirals out of control to the point that voters turn it off hurts Harris more. But she needs to make the case to undecided voters that she’s more than capable of standing up to a bully.