Kamala Harris appears to have emerged victorious from the debate, according to pundits, analysts, and early polls published by media outlets. Analyst Nate Silver wrote on his blog that there is “a strong consensus that Harris won the night,” while noting that the price of Bitcoin has fallen, “which also implies a loss for Trump.” And he adds: “Even Fox News commentators seemed to acknowledge that Harris won.”
Similarly, Harris won the CNN poll of debate participants by 63% to 37%. On average, the debate winner leads in these types of post-debate polls by 18 points, so Harris’ 26-point victory is at the high end of the range.
Most voters who participated in a focus group –discussion group– CNN’s Mercyhurst University in Erie, Pennsylvania, also said they thought Harris won.
The group consisted of 13 voters who had not yet decided who to vote for before the debate. When CNN’s Phil Mattingly asked the group who won the debate, eight of the participants said Harris won. Mattingly noted that Erie is “the most undecided county” in the battleground, CNN reports.
Some conservative analysts, such as Chris Rufo and Rod Drehrer, have also acknowledged – with reservations – Harris’ victory on Twitter/X.
“I think she wins,” said Rod Dreher: “She seems like a normal, clear, strong person. Trump can’t pull off a punch: he’s boastful and vague. Sure, the ABC moderators are biased, but you can’t blame them for Trump’s vanity and lack of accuracy.”
“Harris is winning slightly on points,” says Christopher F. Rufo: “It shouldn’t change the race significantly, but she has managed to reduce the risk and now the right has lost the narrative of Harris’ refusal to communicate or engage with the media. It will be interesting to see if he stays silent again.”
“Kamala Harris won the night and the debate,” said Lloyd Green, a lawyer who worked at the U.S. Justice Department from 1990 to 1992. “The vice president stayed on the offensive and Trump had most of the speaking time, but.” That didn’t do him any favors. The former president attacked Harris on immigration and inflation. He called her a Marxist and bragged about the size of her rallies. He praised Hungary’s Viktor Orbán and accused immigrants of eating “the people’s pets.” Trump and Harris appear tied in Pennsylvania, while Democrats maintain slight leads in Michigan and Wisconsin. Post-convention enthusiasm is waning. The attack on Trump is a thing of the past. The trench warfare has given way. Election Day is less than two months away, an eternity in politics.
Bhaskar Sunkara, president of Nation and a founding editor of Jacobin, reflects: “Joe Biden set the bar very low: The president’s June debate performance was so disastrous that it catapulted him out of the race and Kamala Harris into office. All Harris had to do Tuesday night to be celebrated by the media was string together a few coherent sentences. And she did. Harris had her best moment when she successfully painted Trump as an elite who doesn’t care about ordinary Americans, including her voters. The 2016 version of Trump’s populism focused largely on the economic grievances facing working Americans. His 2024 version is far more unhinged: lies about the election, lies about immigrants eating pets, lies about abortion laws, too many lies to count. So it’s very easy to tell the difference between a competent politician and a dangerous potential tyrant.” But I fear that by failing to respond to the country’s righteous anger, Harris will become Hillary Clinton 2.0.”
Ben Davis, a political analyst in Washington, DC, says: “In the past, while Trump has been narcissistic, impulsive and racist, at least he has been relentless in his message, setting the tone of the debate with attacks and forcing his opponents to adopt his message. approaches. In this debate, he has been defensive and seemed angry and confused throughout. Much of the credit goes to Harris, who clearly prepared well and provoked Trump to the worst. Every time the question turned to a topic on which Trump had a lead over Harris in the polls, like the economy, foreign policy and the Biden administration’s record, she would slip in a line about him and his past that he couldn’t avoid. chase. His most memorable lines were distinguished above all by their bizarre and crazy nature. In short, Trump showed who he is: an authoritarian right-winger, but also confused and incompetent.”
