How Harris won the debate

 United States Vice President Kamala Harris is making a strong bid to enter into history books as her country’s first ever female commander-in-chief, and she’s having a roll. She dramatically reshaped the presidential race after she was tapped for the Democratic ticket less than five months to election day when President Joe Biden abruptly pulled his stalled re-election bid in July. Now, she’s further paved her path towards the White House with a commanding performance in her first match-up against Republican nominee and former president, Donald Trump. She’s aced her moments so far and the tides are swaying in her favour. 

The presidential debate in Philadelphia last Tuesday night – exactly eight weeks before election day – was the first face-to-face encounter between Harris and Trump who are locked in a tight race. The Democratic and Republican nominees went head-to-head at the event hosted by ABC news network that was advertised to run for 90 minutes with two commercial breaks, but which lasted for about an hour and 45 minutes. There was no live audience on hand, only debate moderators at the venue where the candidates stood behind short podiums some six to eight feet apart in a small, blue-lit amphitheater. But you could see the beauty of democracy as they submitted to grilling in their quest to make their arguments to American voters. 

Trump won the virtual coin toss before the start of the presidential debate, but that’s about all he won at the event. From the opening moments when Harris strode over to his podium and wringed a handshake out of him, she dictated the terms and tenor of their clash and from her general perception couldn’t have had a better night. She brimmed with positive vibes, swaggered with charming smiles, skirted tricky issues and needled her opponent repeatedly. Trump, on the other hand, scowled much of the time, strained at restraining his famous ill-temper, blasted America as failing and was repeatedly thrown off his game. The ex-president, who had gone into the debate promising he would prove the maxim by boxing champ Mike Tyson that “everyone has a plan until they get punched in the mouth,” was thrown multiple jabs by Harris but landed few in return.

For a debate that polling had showed some 28 percent of likely American voters saying they felt the need to learn more about Harris while just nine percent said same about Trump, the vice president’s performance fed into that room for potential expansion in her support base. That effect was amply illustrated by one of music industry’s biggest stars, Taylor Swift, who barely as the debate closed endorsed Harris and her running mate, Minnesota Governor Tim Walz, in an Instagram post. “I will be casting my vote for Kamala Harris and Tim Walz in the 2024 presidential election. I’m voting for @kamalaharris because she fights for the rights and causes I believe need a warrior to champion them,” she wrote in the post. Trump, for his part, did not seem eager to change perceptions about his dystopian objectives for the American presidency and often appeared as if he wished he was yet debating Biden who he had mincemeated in their encounter last June, leading to Biden’s campaign tanking and forcing his withdrawal from the race.

The debate was mainly issue-based but plied by both Harris and Trump with arguments targeted at exposing each other’s personality failings. Although the two candidates shook hands to begin their encounter, it was clear enough they had not hit it off as the debate moderators grilled then on their perspectives about the economy, abortion, climate change and foreign policy issues like the raging Russia-Ukraine conflict, China and the Israel-Hamas war among others. If debates are won and lost on which candidate best took advantage of issues on which they are strong and deflected in areas that hobbles them, Harris got an edge over Trump. And if debates were to decide electoral wins, the vice president would be home and dry for the Democrats even ahead of election day on 5th November. But U.S. electoral history shows debates don’t determine election wins and candidates who triumph on the debate stage don’t always come out tops at the ballot box. Both Trump in 2016 in a match with former First Lady Hillary Clinton, and former President George W. Bush in 2004 against current climate envoy, Senator John Kerry, were adjudged to have lost debates to their rivals but went on to win the White House.

“Debates are no substitute for credible elections, but they go a long way in making elections credible”

In last Tuesday’s derby, Harris repeatedly rattled the former president with personal attacks that threw him off his message. Her digs about the size of his rally crowds, his conduct during the 2000 Capitol riot and officials who served in his administration but have turned fierce critics of his campaign repeatedly forced Trump onto the back foot. The vice president’s tack for much of the night was to goad her Republican rival into making extended defences of his past behaviour and comments, and in that process get thrown off attacks he could have plied against her own vulnerabilities. Ahead of the debate, Harris’s campaign had pushed for a review of the rule stipulating that the mike of the candidate whose turn it wasn’t to speak be muted. But even though she didn’t get her way, the vice president deployed her skills as a career prosecutor to repeatedly bait Trump; and he swallowed the bait most of the time, raised his voice sometimes and scowled at viewers at other times.

Time and time again during the debate, Harris backed Trump against the wall with jabs and barbs he should have ignored but couldn’t resist responding to. Her playbook apparently was to challenge his hegemonic masculinity, like when she needled the ex-president about his rally crowds and his capacity to engage them. “People start leaving the rallies early out of exhaustion and boredom,” she said. That claim unsettled Trump sufficiently to throw him off spending his speaking time on his main areas of strength like the economy and immigration, and rather to defend his rally sizes and belittle hers. The ex-president went from there to an extended riff on an already debunked rumour that Haitian immigrants in Springfield, Ohio were abducting and eating their neighbour’s pets. Against repeated boasts by Trump that world leaders dread him, Harris said those leaders were rather laughing at him.

While the candidates’ respective gender was not expressly at issue during the debate, there was an undercurrent of gender dynamics in the encounter that Harris exploited to her advantage. She got the upper hand easily over Trump in the conversation about abortion rights, for instance. Besides, she postured as the underdog faced up against irrational masculine aggression by Trump whose Achilles heel had always included a misogynistic air he carries around. Even after the debate, Harris claimed to still be the underdog. At a debate watch-party by supporters where she headed from the encounter with the ex-president, she said she and Walz were “still the underdogs” but projected positivity for the remainder of the electioneering. Trump, on the other hand, headed to a media spin room where he insisted he won the debate and, like all match losers who blame their loss on bad refereeing, alleged a gang-up with Harris by the debate moderators. “I was very happy with the result… I thought this was my best debate,” he told Fox News host Sean Hannity, arguing that he thought Harris didn’t do very well. “It was obviously 3-on-1,” he added, referencing an emergent narrative among his supporters that the moderators treated him unfairly.

Harris won the debate because she had a strategy drawn up from painstaking preparation. Reports said she hired a sparring partner always dressed in Trump’s signature red tie, studied recordings of Trump’s past debate encounters, and took detailed briefings from Hillary and Biden who had debated Trump before. Trump rather had informal policy briefing sessions for his preparation.

There are useful lessons for Nigeria in the encounter. Debate by candidates enriches the democracy experience and compels political actors seeking votes in an election to present themselves for simultaneous assessment by the electorate. This should become a requirement in our own electoral system because respective campaign events do not offer opportunity for such simultaneous assessment. Such events get attended only by supporters of the different candidates. Debates also compel candidates to focus on issues and articulate these in a manner that can be interrogated, not the wild claims that get made on the hustings where attendees are drooling supporters and no second guessers. Debates are no substitute for credible elections, but they go a long way in making elections credible.

Harris had a good night in her match with Trump, but debates alone don’t win elections. She must push on for a good day on 5th November if she would keep her date with history.