Kamala Harris Wins Debate, but the Effect on Undecided Voters Remain Unclear

Kamala Harris Wins Debate, but the Effect on Undecided Voters Remain Unclear

Liam Knotek

Staff Writer

Former president Donald Trump and Vice-President Kamala Harris faced off in the Presidential Debate on September 10 in Philadelphia, moderated by David Muir and Linsey Davis of ABC News. 

After President Biden’s failure at the Presidential Debate in June and Harris’ presumption of the candidacy, the Presidential race has become much closer. This debate had the chance to make or break the race, as it was Trump’s last chance to end Harris’ extended “honeymoon” phase, and Harris’ chance to convince undecided voters of Trump’s inadequacies, according to The Guardian.

Many Republicans, including former House Speaker Newt Gingrich and Republican strategist Tricia McLaughlin, feared Trump’s record of personal insults against his rivals, worked against him, reports Politico. They suspected Harris would be very aggressive to bait Trump into using personal insults. In order to keep control of the debate, Trump had to focus on policy failures of the Biden-Harris Administration such as the War in Gaza, migration, and the withdrawal from Afghanistan, reports NBC. He also could have questioned Harris’ policy flip-flops, such as fracking and decriminalizing illegal border crossings, reports The Guardian.

Harris’ strategy was thought to likely be based on Trump’s personal record. Likely attacks included Trump’s conviction, his mistrust of networks of alliances such as NATO, and his supposed praise of autocrats such as Russian president Vladimir Putin, according to NBC. The National Security staff Harris has relied on during her presidency could not participate in debate preparations, so she resorted to advisors such as Colin Kahl, a former Defense Department official under Biden, and Tom Donilon, former national security advisor of Barack Obama.

Post-debate, most have arrived on the consensus that Kamala Harris dominated the debate. Kamala Harris appeared nervous at first, but got a hold of herself, explaining policy flip-flops, addressing policy plans, and successfully getting under Trump’s skin according to NPR. Liberal news network CNN was critical of Trump’s performance, calling him “out of control” and mocking his use of the infamous debunked story of immigrants eating pets in Ohio.

Conservatives were quick to Trump’s defense. They slammed the bias of the moderators calling the debate rigged. Trump was unfairly targeted by fact checks, according to Conservative news network The Daily Wire. The Daily Wire also questioned moderator David Muir, who has reported positively on Harris 100 percent of the time and negatively on Trump 93 percent of the time.

Harris also lied about issues such as the debunked story of Trump calling white supremacists in Charlottesville “fine people”, Trump’s supposed support of Project 2025, and insinuated that Trump had said there will be violence if he loses this election in reference to his “bloodbath” quote, but was never fact-checked reports The Daily Wire.

Initial polling shows not much difference to pre-debate polls, with Harris still leading nationally by a small margin in Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin, while Trump leads in Georgia and Arizona, reports The Washington Post. North Carolina and Nevada are still tied. Polls also show most voters think Harris won the debate, but give Trump a 20 point lead on the economy, and a 23 point lead on immigration, according to CNN.

The debate is not likely to affect the choice of many people. Most people who did not vote for Trump in 2016 or 2020 will not do so this year, and similarly most who voted for Biden in 2020 will vote for Harris this year. Both candidates sought to influence the choice of the small number of undecided voters, whether they be disgruntled Democrats who are not happy with the state of the country under the Biden-Harris administration, or Republicans who are tired of the boisterous antics of Donald Trump. It will be difficult to know the full effect of this debate on those voters until the weeks after the debate.

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