Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democrats’ presidential candidate for about a month, will have her first high-profile, high-stakes showdown Tuesday night with Republican Donald Trump.
The 2024 political season has already shown how much debates can matter.
President Joe Biden’s poor performance in the June debate with Trump dramatically changed the presidential race, relegating Biden to a one-term president, vaulting Harris into her party’s leadership and blunting, at least for now, Trump’s lead in the race.
The stakes will be equally high for the Trump-Harris debate in Philadelphia, the biggest city in the swing state of Pennsylvania, beginning at 8 p.m. CT.
Here’s how the candidates can approach the ABC News debate, which also will air on many other stations.
What Harris can do
Outline an agenda: Though she’s the vice president and a former senator with high name recognition, most Americans aren’t familiar with Harris’ policy proposals or her past positions.
Debate night is a chance for Harris to outline a vision for the White House, including proposals to address the rising cost of groceries and other necessities. Inflation under the Biden-Harris administration is a potential political pothole.
Harris has said she would curb price gouging on food but may need to add depth to her plans, particularly if Trump presses the issue.
Foreign policy could present opportunities and pitfalls. The Israel-Hamas war in Gaza and the war between Russia and Ukraine present challenges for the most seasoned diplomats.
Trump will criticize Harris and Biden for the explosion of migrants who crossed the southern border over the past four years. She needs to have answers, including explaining her role in border and immigration issues, then point to solutions.
Embrace, but break from, Biden: Trump’s presidential campaign prospered with Biden as his foe. In addition to questions about Biden’s age as an 81-year-old candidate, issues such as inflation and border security propelled Trump. There also was the problematic military withdrawal from Afghanistan.
Biden tried, with limited success, to sell voters on the administration’s economic achievements, including the American Rescue Plan to deal with the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic, a $1 trillion infrastructure improvement plan and the CHIPS and Science Act.
Harris will have to tout those accomplishments under pressure from Trump and in front of many viewers who, polls show, are skeptical of the administration’s handling of the economy.
While praising him, Harris will want to separate herself from Biden.
For most of the campaign season, many voters lamented having to choose between Biden and Trump. Harris has the chance to project herself as an opportunity for a new direction.
Attacking Trump: Harris will toss out a litany of attacks and criticisms of Trump. His legal issues and the Jan. 6 Capitol riot will certainly come up.
Harris has spent a lot of effort portraying Trump as a politician who has grown stale and stands in the way of progress. Appealing to voters who are tired of the Washington gridlock and Trump-centered topics that dominate the news, Harris can make turning the page on the Trump era a backdrop of her debate performance. She’ll seek to cast herself as a change agent who will be a champion for the middle class, not the coastal and Hollywood elites.
What Trump can do
Link Harris to Biden: Harris has had a remarkable run since becoming the Democratic Party’s standard bearer, and through most of it she’s avoided the negatives that weighed Biden down.
A widely watched debate gives Trump the chance to remind Americans that Harris is Biden’s vice president and publicly supported his policies.
Trump can list issues that made Biden unpopular, including inflation and border security, and try to get Harris to defend — or back away from — the administration’s record.
Trump can also harken to Harris’ shortened 2020 presidential campaign, when she embraced issues popular with progressive Democrats, including a ban on fracking, an oil and gas extraction technique.
Harris says such a ban is no longer necessary, but Trump can remind voters of what was important to Harris during her first presidential run and explain why he disagrees.
Outline a second-term agenda beyond revenge: Voters in at least seven swing states are expected to determine the outcome of November’s election, and the undecided voters in those states may not be hard partisans driven by Trump’s 2020 election grievances.
Many will want to hear how Trump would improve the lives of average Americans and deal with trouble spots across the globe.
When he won the 2016 presidential election, Trump cast himself as the champion of the working class. For this race, he’ll have to put his working-class agenda ahead of his personal agenda.
Harris will use the issue of women’s reproductive rights; Trump appointed the three Supreme Court justices who gave conservatives the numbers needed to repeal Roe vs. Wade and national abortion protections.
He’ll have to clearly explain his policies on reproductive rights, abortion bans and women’s health.
Criticize, but be careful with insults: Republicans have implored Trump to reserve his criticism of Harris to her record and positions on various issues. They don’t want him insulting her or talking about her racial background, which happened in July when he told a Chicago gathering of Black journalists that Harris, who is Black and South Asian, only recently identified as being Black.
Over the years, Trump has been successful in tagging his rivals with nicknames that capture his attack strategies with insulting humor.
That might not work with Harris, who has promised Democrats she’s well-suited to prosecute the political case against Trump.
There is a contrast between Trump and Harris on issues, and his debate success may rely on how much he sticks to substance.
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