Kamala Harris had two main tasks at tonight's US presidential debate in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
The first was to present himself and the policies he defends to the widest possible audience, which is a collection of viewers with different political leanings. This need arose from the fact that a still significantly large percentage of American citizens do not actually know the causes for which the current Vice President of the United States is fighting. A full 28 percent of people who said they wanted to vote said they would like to know more about Harris' policies, a New York Times/Siena College Poll conducted earlier this month found (by comparison, just 9 percent of respondents need additional information about Donald Trump). The need to get to know the Democratic candidate among respondents jumps dramatically to 48% when asked the key group of undecideds (those who are undecided candidates will vote, are about 15%). And this data shows that tonight's debate was much more important to Kamala Harris than it was to Donald Trump.
The second task for the incumbent vice president was to present himself as the more moderate of the two candidates at the podium. It also stems from polls that, before the debate, saw Harris as more extreme than Trump (44% said she was "too liberal and progressive," while a third thought the candidate The Republican Party is "too conservative"). Namely, it is the political center that will name the next head of the White House. And it is precisely this need - to endear themselves to moderate voters - that somehow made it even fun to watch the looping of the contenders: Kamala Harris owned a firearm, Donald Trump wanted no federal ban on abortion.
After the debate between Harris and Trump, we can safely say that the Democrat managed to fulfill both of his tasks. Although in polemic mode with his Republican opponent, the Democrat was able to lay out key policies on the economy, health care, abortion rights, and more. In this sense, Harris' presentation was like a campaign brochure thrust into people's hands, outlining the candidate's political framework. At the same time, the vice president made the request for the moderate candidate, saying that he is not against fracking, supports additional measures against illegal immigration and does not want to reduce the funds for the police. How credible Harris's assertion that she "hasn't changed her values", when she has certainly changed her policies on the cited subjects for conjuncture, is another matter. The Democrat's claim as the candidate of a new generation of politicians oriented to the future, not the past, is also subject to criticism, insofar as her Republican opponent continues to be regarded as a more authentic exponent of change in American society. As much as the vice president keeps repeating that she is "not Joe Biden and certainly not Donald Trump,", the majority of Americans are ready to dispute the former. It was also visible that the Democrat, along with the Republican, was unable to go into detail on the policies she proposed, and often responded with seemingly learned, silicone phrases. But whatever was up to Kamala Harris, she did it.
However, the most important highlight of the event was not related to the policies of the two candidates, but to the way their characters and mental resilience clashed. And here the winner of the debate seems somewhat clearer. With a line about Trump's campaign events, Harris managed to get under his opponent's skin and somehow subtly prove that the Republican is easy to manipulate; that he can be put on rails that are not necessarily his own. As a result, viewers saw an offensive, grumpy, thin-skinned and frothing-at-the-mouth Trump talking to campaign crowds instead of focusing on the difficult legacy of the Biden administration on the country's economy and its fight against crime and illegal immigration. The first champagne must have been opened in the Democratic headquarters somewhere. And someone could probably hear their glasses clinking when the GOP candidate talked about how illegal immigrants are eating the dogs and cats in Ohio.
If the debate between Joe Biden and Donald Trump revealed the mental difficulties of the former, which also led to his withdrawal from the election race, the current one between the former president and the current vice president materializes the visible deficits in the character of the Republican. But this was not the only problem for Trump in the framework of the pre-election discussion. In it, he continued to say the same thing, to the same people, like a broken gramophone stuck on a worn record. The Republican continues to lag behind the dynamics of the circumstances.
This debate took place at a pivotal moment in Kamala Harris's campaign, when support for her seemed to have reached an all-time high. Neither the Democratic National Convention, nor her first official interview as a presidential candidate, managed to bring her an additional electoral boost. That is, support for Harris among American voters appears to have stagnated. Tonight's campaign debate, however, could prove to be the boost the Democrat has been missing for the past two weeks. Not so much for her performance as for her opponent's.
However, all this does not mean that Donald Trump will lose support due to his unbalanced performance in the debate. If there's one thing we already know about the Republican, it's that his constituents can't be swayed by such things. In addition, the Republican continues to be the more recognizable -- for better or for worse -- of the two candidates. But this debate was a missed opportunity for Trump because he failed to deal with an "easy opponent" in the face of a "left wing extremist", a "liberal from San Francisco". Especially since Trump is holding his next presidential debate, and in this capacity, this one was the first for his Democratic opponent. The pre-election debate that took place will certainly not bring additional support for the Republican, since if there is an electoral redistribution as a result of it among moderate voters, it will not be in his favor. At least until the cats and dogs of Ohio are allowed to vote.