Friday, September 20, 2024

As Trump is stuck in sludge, Harris draws support from Republicans, who reject Trump for "violating his oath of office" and bringing "danger to our country"

Kamala Harris makes it a point to attract GOP support (NY Times)

 

As Donald Trump's campaign is hitting one snag after another, a growing horde of Republicans is jumping on the "Good Ship Kamala Harris" for the 2024 presidential election, according to a report at The New Republic. (TNR). Under the headline "Flood of Republicans switching to Kamala Harris," TNR CEO Michael Caruso explains:

It’s unheard of in modern politics, especially in an era driven by fierce partisan division, for prominent members of one party to rush to support the other party’s nominee.

 

This week, a legion of former GOP officials came out with a full-throated endorsement of Kamala Harris—110 former members of Congress, defense secretaries, CIA directors, and many others.

 

Their letter makes clear that "any potential concerns" they would have about voting against the GOP "pale in comparison" to the threat posed by a second term from a man who "has violated his oath of office and brought danger to our country."

 

The co-signers of the letter join 17 officials from the Reagan administration who have endorsed Harris and 230 former George H.W. Bush, George W. Bush, John McCain, and Mitt Romney staffers who threw in for Harris in August.

 

That leaves Sarah Palin as the only living Republican who has been nominated for president or vice president who is still supporting Donald Trump’s reelection bid.

Talk about putting things in stark perspective. To repeat, Sarah Palin is the only living Republican who has been nominated for president or vice president who is still supporting Donald Trump’s reelection bid. In other words, Trump's support among the big names in his own party extends to the least qualified GOP candidate of the modern era -- and goes no further.

These appear to be grim times in Trump Land, and Harris is taking advantage by reeling in boatloads of Republican support. Caruso writes:

The new Republican supporters are part of a recent surge of support for the vice president. One week after her debate with Donald Trump, polling models show Harris has made incredible gains. 

 

Shortly after the debate last week, polling expert Nate Silver’s prediction model had Harris at a 38 percent chance of winning the presidency; this week, she jumped to 47.6 percent—making the race a toss-up in a polling model that’s been bullish on Trump for months. The polling firm that Silver founded, FiveThirtyEight, has even better news for Harris, projecting that she will sweep all the swing states and has a 61 percent chance of sweeping the electoral votes.

 

Thomas Miller, a data scientist at Northwestern University who correctly called the last election using a prediction model based on election betting markets, currently has Harris taking 55 percent of the vote.

 

Despite this recent good news, the election could go either way. Many polls still predict Trump has an Electoral College advantage, and many pundits say the Supreme Court is ready to help him out if the results are close.

Thursday, September 19, 2024

Kamala Harris' net favorability rating moves into positive territory, meaning would-be voters are taking plus views of her image, following the debate

(FiveThirtyEight)
 

Kamala Harris' net favorability rating is moving up in the political world, indicating poll respondents have a much more positive view of her image than was once the case, according to a report at Axios. Under the headline "Kamala Harris' polling renaissance," Zachary Basu writes:

Vice President Kamala Harris' net favorability rating crossed into positive territory yesterday for the first time since July 2021, according to FiveThirtyEight's polling average.

Why it matters: Harris has experienced an image makeover of epic proportions — the kind usually reserved for retired politicians, not a sitting vice president nearly four years into her term.

The link above includes a graph from FiveThirtyEight, tracking Harris' favorability rating and its move into positive territory. (The graph also can be viewed at the top of this post.) Basu provides background on the graph:

  • As recently as July 14, one week before President Biden dropped out of the race, Harris' net approval sat at -17 — among the worst VP ratings in modern polling history.
  • Today, with under 50 days until the election, Harris' success in erasing that deficit suggests she's winning the high-stakes, high-dollar war to define her candidacy.

Reality check: Those gains don't mean Harris will win the Electoral College, which will be decided by seven nail-biter contests in Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, Arizona, Nevada, Georgia, and North Carolina.

Recent data, however shows that Harris' dominant debate performance strengthened her position against Donald Trump. Basu writes:

The big picture: The election remains exceedingly close, even with early indications that Harris is receiving a polling bump from her strong debate performance against former President Trump last week.

  • FiveThirtyEight's election model currently has Harris favored to win the election 61 times out of 100, while Trump is favored to win 39 times out of 100.
  • The Economist's polling average found Harris has opened up her largest lead yet in the national popular vote — 4.4 points over Trump — while its model gives her a 3 in 5 chance of winning the election.
  • Nate Silver, whose model has consistently favored Trump for the past several weeks, wrote today that Harris is "moving up in the polls enough that the model is converging back toward 50/50 in the Electoral College."
  • Recent polling data produces some odd outcomes, especially in states where you would not expect to see such oddities. Basu provides background:
  • Between the lines: While pundits and forecasters remain on the lookout for high-quality battleground polls, one of the most intriguing surveys of the past several days came from a red state.

  • A Des Moines Register/Mediacom poll by renowned pollster J. Ann Selzer found Trump edging Harris 47% to 43% among likely Iowa voters, shrinking an 18-point lead Trump had over Biden in June.
  • In a provocative Substack post on Sunday, Silver also flagged a rare poll from Alaska showing Harris trailing Trump by just five points.

The bottom line: For all the positivity around Harris' recent polls, she's still polling worse against Trump than both Biden and Hillary Clinton were at this point in 2020 and 2016, respectively.

Wednesday, September 18, 2024

Harris' dominant debate performance pays off on the numbers, as first post-debate poll shows her taking a six-point lead over Trump, while pulling ahead in PA

 

Kamala Harris takes six-point lead over Trump (Getty)

Kamala Harris has taken a six-point lead over Donald Trump in new polling, according to a report at Newsweek.  Under the headline "Kamala Harris Hits Record Polling Lead Over Donald Trump," Theo Burman writes:

Kamala Harris has increased her polling lead over Donald Trump to record highs, according to the latest Morning Consult poll.

 The vice president is currently 6 percentage points ahead among likely voters, 51 percent to Trump's 45 percent, which is double the advantage she held before their debate on ABC last week.

The polling also showed that Harris had a strong lead with independent voters, with 47 percent saying they were planning to vote for her in November. 41 percent said the same about Trump with a further 6 percent undecided about the decision, and another 6 percent voting for a third-party candidate. Independent voters are expected to be key to winning crucial battleground states in November's election.

Congressional Democrats also whittled away at Republican advantages on key issues, lowering the GOP's lead on immigration from 13 points to 7, and their lead on national security from 8 points to just 3, according to the poll. Both of these issues, along with the economy, have been the largest talking points the Trump campaign has focused on across the election so far.

According to Newsweek's polling tracker, Harris maintains a 3-point lead nationally ahead of Trump, while also leading slightly in Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania.

Three recent polls found Trump to be slightly ahead in Arizona, while most recent polls have put Georgia and North Carolina as toss-ups, with many results within the margin of error.

Morning Consult's numbers are built on "thousands of daily surveys" as well as consistent tracking of the top issues in the electoral cycle and how much media coverage they receive.

The news comes as Trump faces tougher odds across several polls and forecast models in the wake of some strong numbers for Harris. The latest version of the FiveThirtyEight election forecast, one of the most-viewed models this election, gave Trump a record-low chance of winning the Electoral College at just 39 percent.

Previously, Trump had been performing close to the margin of error between the two candidates. When the model first relaunched following the replacement of President Joe Biden, it gave Trump a 41 percent chance of winning, which was rising steadily before the ABC debate on September 10.

The Harris campaign also received positive polling from Pennsylvania, widely considered to be the most significant swing state in this election, on Monday, with a poll that put the Democrat ahead by three points, with 48.6 percent to Trump's 45.6 percent.


Tuesday, September 17, 2024

Fox News gives Donald Trump a wide-open platform that allows him to blame Harris and Biden, with no evidence, for would-be assassins targeting him


 

(Fox News)
 

An apparent assassination attempt against Donald Trump on Sunday is the latest sign that violence has become part of the "new normal" in American politics. As often seems to be the case with Trump, he quickly made the situation worse, not better, according to  a report at The New Republic (TNR).

On an episode of Special Report With Brett Baier on Fox News Sunday (9/16/24), Trump blamed his Democratic opponent, Kamala Harris (and President Joe Biden), for the recent attempted assassinations against him -- even though evidence presented in the non-far right press indicates Harris and Biden had nothing to do with it. 

How harsh and inflammatory was Trump's own rhetoric? ABC News helps answer that question with this report:

In a post on his social media platform (Truth Social) later Monday, Trump accused Democrats of making "false statements" about him that he said "has taken politics in our Country to a whole new level of Hatred, Abuse, and Distrust."

Because of Democrats' "rhetoric," the "bullets are flying, and it will only get worse," Trump claimed in his social media post.

Let's return to TNR's coverage, which comes under the headline "Trump Reacts to Assassination Attempt by Making Things Far, Far Worse; Donald Trump just painted a target on Joe Biden’s and Kamala Harris’s backs,"Robert McCoy writes:

In Donald Trump’s first interview following the apparent attempt on his life on Sunday, he blamed the incident on his political rivals, telling Fox News that the would-be assassin “believed” and “acted on” the rhetoric of Joe Biden and Kamala Harris.

“Their rhetoric is causing me to be shot at, when I am the one who is going to save the country, and they are the ones that are destroying the country—both from the inside and out,” Trump told Fox. “They do it with a combination of rhetoric and lawsuits they wrap me up in.… These are the things that dangerous fools, like the shooter, listen to—that is the rhetoric they listen to, and the same with the first one. 

Trump assigned particular blame to Biden and Harris for characterizing him as a “threat to democracy,” while painting themselves as “unity” leaders. “They are the opposite,” he said, calling them “people that want to destroy our country.” 

Trump went on to accuse his opponents of using “highly inflammatory language.” “I can use it too—far better than they can—but I don’t,” he added.

Did Trump say this with a straight face? Did he fail to mention a few factors, of his own making, that play into this unhealthy scenario? (The answer is yes.) Is this another sign that delusional disorder is one of several components of his unstable mental health?

Critics were quick to note the irony in Trump’s comments, given his history of extreme, incendiary rhetoric. This past week, for instance, Trump said that Haitian residents of Springfield, Ohio, are abducting and eating pets, amplifying a baseless rumor that has resulted in threats against local schools, hospitals, and municipal buildings. 

Even while urging Democrats to tamp down their rhetoric, Trump demonstrated his penchant for inflammatory language, describing his political opponents as forces of evil: “These are people who want to destroy our country,” Trump told Fox. “It is called the enemy from within. They are the real threat.”

In a post on Truth Social Monday morning, Trump wrote “FIGHT, FIGHT, FIGHT!!!!!” and linked to a statement about the attempt that says “there are people in this world who will do whatever it takes to stop us.”

This is a case of Trump dumping his own brand of brazen dishonesty and deception into the public discourse. Where could this be leading us? Millions of Americans came to the realization long ago that Trump is dangerous -- and he is getting worse, not better. His caustic comments on Sunday and Monday clearly could put his opponents in danger, especially in our current toxic culture that Trump did more than anyone else to create. We strongly suggest all Americans firmly reject Trump's nasty rhetoric that openly praises authoritarians and dictators while admitting he intends to act way outside democratic norms and the U.S. Constitution. He is trying pull a con on the American people, and far too many of us still don't seem to grasp that.

Monday, September 16, 2024

Confusion reigns over Trump shooting incident at golf course, presenting an odd case of an 'attempted 'assassination' with no clearly identifiable shooter

Ryan Wesley Routh (X)

A Florida man, in custody on charges that he attempted to assassinate former President Donald Trump as he played golf yesterday afternoon at his private course near West Palm Beach, was a supporter of Ukraine and had written critically online about Trump's positions on the war that seemed to favor Russia. 

According to a report at Yahoo! News, the chaotic scene began to unfold at about noon EST when reports about the U.S. Secret Service being involved in a "protective incident" began to circulate online. Reports soon appeared that the incident's location was Trump International Golf Course in West Palm Beach, where the course's proprietor was in the early stages of his round.

The suspect was identified as Ryan Wesley Routh, 58. Ironically, he had voted for Trump in 2016 and currently was registered as an unaffiliated voter. Reporting on the incident tended to be sketchy, likely because it was a confusing situation with a bevy of facts becoming known in quick succession. For example, Routh is facing charges of attempted assassination, but CBS reported it is unknown if he fired any shots, in the direction of Trump, the golf course, or anywhere else. Also, some reports said Secret Service agents noticed something amiss when they saw a rifle being pointed through a hole in a fence. But other articles indicated agents could not see Routh, or anyone else in that area, because of heavy shrubbery surrounding much of the golf course.

CBS did unearth details about Routh's background, which includes a number of run-ins with the law. From the CBS report:

His most recent address is listed in Hawaii, but he spent most of his life in North Carolina, according to property records. Routh owned Camp Box Honolulu, a shed-building company, according to his LinkedIn profile. The account also says that he studied at North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University and graduated in 1998. 

Records show Routh's issues with the law go back to the 1990s and include lesser charges of writing bad checks. But in 2002 he was charged with possession of a weapon of mass destruction, a felony, according to North Carolina Department of Corrections records. In another incident, he was charged with misdemeanors, including a hit-and-run offense, resisting arrest, and a concealed weapons violation, the records show.

Suspect criticized Trump online 

Routh voted Democratic in the 2024 primary election in North Carolina, and he voted in person, according to the North Carolina State Board of Elections. He appears to be registered as an unaffiliated voter. 

His X account, which has now been suspended, included a number of posts about Trump. 

"@realDonaldTrump While you were my choice in 2106, I and the world hoped that president Trump would be different and better than the candidate, but we all were greatly disappointment and it seems you are getting worse and devolving," he wrote in a June 2020 post. "I will be glad when you  are gone."

BBC News provided probably the most clear and comprehensive report on events surrounding the alleged assassination attempt under the headline "What we know about the Trump attack and the suspect." Malu Cursino writes:

Former President Donald Trump was rushed to safety on Sunday after what the FBI called an apparent assassination attempt at Trump's golf course in West Palm Beach.

The incident comes almost exactly two months after a shooting at a Trump rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, which left Trump wounded and one supporter dead.

Details are still emerging from the latest incident and about the suspect, named by US media as Ryan Routh. Here is what we know so far.

For now, Sunday's events raise about as many questions as answers. For example, Trump himself reported hearing "pop, pop, pop" noises, but we've seen no reports in the press so far that indicate the popping sounds came from Routh's direction. As noted earlier, CBS reports that it isn't known if Routh fired any shots. That seems to make this a peculiar assassination case -- one where there is little, if any, evidence that the alleged gunman fired a shot. We suspect to see a lot of follow-up reporting in the coming days because this story, as it stands now, seems to have plenty of holes.

Thursday, September 12, 2024

Donald Trump looks delusional or otherwise mentally ill after claiming he won a debate that was so one-sided it prompted an ex-GOPer to say "she emasculated him"

(Getty)

 

Is Donald Trump delusional, in addition to whatever other mental-health conditions he might have? A reasonable person might ask that question after Trump announced that he would not participate in another debate with Kamala Harris because -- and get this -- he thinks he won Tuesday night's debate, and therefore, has no incentive to engage Harris on the debate stage again.

I've given the Web a pretty good scouring the last 2-3 days, and I haven't been able to find any legitimate, objective news source who says Trump won Tuesday night's debate. For that matter, I haven't found any regular social-media mavens who seem to think Trump was the winner. As you might expect from Trump supporters, a few MAGA types have claimed their orange hero got a raw deal regarding fact-checking  from the ABC moderators. But that's about it so far. The Web is a big place, so it's possible I might have missed something. But for now, I haven't found any evidence that even Trump's most ardent supporters believe he won the debate. If Trump is so delusional or brazenly dishonest that he would try to claim victory in a debate he lost by a wide margin, what does that say about his character? What else might he try to claim as his own when the physical item or achievement belongs to someone else? Wouldn't this be outright theft or its civil equivalent?

Since Trump is an adjudicated rapist and a convicted felon awaiting sentencing -- which could include jail or prison -- can we trust anything he says or does? My answer is "No, we can't." Does that make him unfit to serve as president? My answer is "Yes, it does." More than 200 Republicans, including former members of Trump's White House staff, feel the same way and have publicly stated that they can longer support Trump and have vowed to vote for Harris

What possibly could make Trump think he won Tuesday night's debate? I can think of only one answer: Something is seriously wrong with the wiring in the guy's brain. That probably has been the case for months, maybe years, and it should be clear to almost all voting-age U.S. adults that Trump should never again be anywhere near the seat of power in the world's greatest democracy (which he wants to turn into an authoritarian regime, by the way.)

Here's a suggestion for anyone who doubts that: Between now and election Day (Nov. 5), I urge you to read as many books by Mary Trump, Donald's niece, a writer, and clinical psychologist -- who is strongly opposed to his efforts to return to the White House. I think it is safe to say no human being knows Donald Trump the way Mary Trump knows him, with the professional expertise and the personal background to understand the family dysfunction that produced him. Following is a list of  Mary Trump's  books. Together, they provide a load of insights about the man who wants to be our next president:

(1) Too Much and Never Enough: How My Family Created the World's Most Dangerous Man (Simon & Schuster, 2020). (This memoir rose to No. 1 on Amazon's bestsellers list, selling 1.35 million copies in its first week of release).

(2) The Reckoning: Our Nation's Trauma and Finding a Way to Heal (St. Martin's Press,  2021). 

(3)  Who Could Ever Love You? A Family Memoir (St. Martin's Press, 2024)

Is Donald Trump afraid to debate Kamala Harris? That's how it looks from here.That's also how it looks to Mike Madrid, a former Republican whose debate reaction is covered in a Raw Story/BuzzFeed piece under the headline "Soooo, Donald Trump Shared Exactly Why He Doesn't Want To Debate Kamala Harris Again, And It's Quite The Statement" A separate Raw Story piece is under the headline "'She emasculated him': Ex-senior Republican says Harris left Trump 'embarrassed'." The following is from the two stories, which are the same, just published in two different places:

While we're all still reeling from Tuesday's historic and chaotic presidential debate between former president Donald Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris, the two candidates have since shared their thoughts on a second match.

Previously, Trump agreed to debate his former race counterpart, President Joe Biden, twice ahead of the election. However, after debating Harris, the same cannot be said.

"Under the bright lights, the American people got to see the choice they will face this fall at the ballot box: between moving forward with Kamala Harris, or going backwards with Trump,” Jen O’Malley Dillon, Harris's campaign chair, said. “That’s what they saw tonight and what they should see at a second debate in October. Vice President Harris is ready for a second debate. Is Donald Trump?”

However, in a phone call with Fox News, Trump said, “When a fighter loses they say, ‘I want a rematch.'"

“I won the debate. I don’t know that I want to do another debate.”

Doubling down, he finished, "I’d be less inclined to because we had a great night."

Elsewhere, he repeated this sentiment in an interview with ABC News, saying, "Well she wants a second debate because she lost tonight, very badly."

Trump apparently said all that with a straight face. But it probably caused many political observers to convulse with laughter. In fact, one news site  already has said Trump emerged from the Harris debate as a "laughing stock." Does Trump's assessment have any connection to reality? Not according to the BuzzFeed/Yahoo! report:

According to CNN polling, debate viewers say Harris won the match 63% to 37%. (And that probably is being generous to Trump.)

But of course, the most important poll will always be the actual Election Day results.

Donald Trump's fragile ego lies bleeding on the debate-stage floor after Kamala Harris used smarts, patience, and tactics to leave him (and his campaign?) in a heap

Donald Trump and Kamala Harris go face-to face in debate (AP)
 

Kamala Harris has a history as a strong debater, and it served her well at a big moment, as she got off to a quick start and steamrolled Donald Trump in Tuesday night's presidential debate in Philadelphia. The result was so one-sided that a TIME magazine r4porter said, "It didn't feel like much of a fair fight.

How did Harris manage to take control early and keep it for almost the entire evening. David Leonhardt and Ian Prasad provide an analytical piece at The New York Times Morning newsletter. It gives the impression that Trump should have spent more time on rigorous preparation because Harris was ready, and she essentially jabbed and attacked Trump's fragile ego enough that he wound up beating himself. Here is how Jim Geraghty, of the iconic conservative magazine National Review, put it under the headline "Trump’s Biggest Problem at the Debate . . . Was Trump":

This morning, a whole lot of people in right-world want to argue that last night’s debate didn’t go as well as it should have for Donald Trump, because the moderators were unfair in their questioning and challenging of Trump’s assertions while giving Kamala Harris a pass. Eh, the biggest problem for Trump last night was Trump.

I find myself genuinely curious to see if the poll numbers shift at all in the coming weeks. On paper, Kamala Harris’s campaign got exactly what it wanted. She appeared poised, calm, cool, collected — the experienced prosecutor. Trump was a teapot boiling over — fuming, scowling, and shouting through most of the night.

So — again on paper — Trump was terrible, and you would think his poll numbers, nationwide and in the swing states, would nosedive. But what we saw Tuesday night wasn’t all that different from the same Trump we’ve seen year after year. And remember when Trump’s conviction was supposed to be a game-changer? The numbers barely budged.

Trump isn’t neck-and-neck in this race because Americans are charmed by his personality. He’s neck-and-neck in this race because of the national exhaustion with the Biden administration status quo, and frustration with inflation and the high cost of living, an insecure southern border, and a sense of growing chaos overseas. So, yes, in theory, this should have been a Harris knockout blow. But if this sort of contrast works, and one sort of performance is so much better than the other . . . why is Trump still so close to reaching 270 or more electoral votes?

Buckle up. This is a long one.

The ‘Illegal Aliens Are Eating Our Pets’ Debate

Yes, you can make fair gripes about ABC News moderators David Muir and Linsey Davis. Harris’s favorite topic, abortion, came up early when the audience was most tuned-in. But in the end, it was Trump’s job to go up there and make the best case for his election that he possibly could with the time he had — and instead he turned in a temper tantrum of a performance, taking the bait that Harris laid out every single time. . . . 

There were some tough questions in there for Harris on the state of the economy, on flip-flopping, and on Afghanistan. And every Republican presidential candidate should expect tougher questions the moment he steps on a debate stage. We’ve lived through Gwen Ifill moderating a debate with then-senator Obama, after signing a deal to write a book about him. We’ve lived through CNN’s Candy Crowley incorrectly “correcting” Mitt Romney. We’ve lived through George Stephanopoulos asking about a nonexistent Republican intent to ban birth control.

If Trump is giving a nomination-acceptance speech, he’ll ramble about the Green Bay Packers, how much money Kid Rock makes, and the time he saw Hulk Hogan “lift a 350-pound man over his shoulders and then bench press him two rows into the audience,” and nickname CBS News’ morning show “Deface the Nation.”

There were some tough questions for Harris -- on the state of the economy, on flip-flopping, and on Afghanistan. And every Republican presidential candidate should expect tougher questions the moment he steps on a debate stage. We’ve lived through Gwen Ifill moderating a debate with then-senator Obama, after signing a deal to write a book about him. We’ve lived through CNN’s Candy Crowley incorrectly “correcting” Mitt Romney. We’ve lived through George Stephanopoulos asking about a nonexistent Republican intent to ban birth control.

No, in the end, the problem is that every single time, Donald Trump talks about what he wants to talk about — whether or not it’s in his interest, whether or not it’s in his party’s interest, and whether or not it is what the moment requires.

If he’s up on stage for what is likely his only debate against his current opponent, he’ll say that he doesn’t get enough credit for urging the crowd on January 6 to be “peaceful and patriotic,” that he regrets nothing he said or did that day, and that those who have been prosecuted for crimes committed on January 6 “have been treated so badly,” and he’ll cite Sean Hannity and Laura Ingraham as reporters who verify his version of events, and he’ll quote Hungary’s Viktor Orbán as evidence that he’s respected on the world stage. He’ll insist the 2020 election was stolen: “I’ll show you Georgia and I’ll show you Wisconsin and I’ll show you Pennsylvania and I’ll show you — we have so many facts and statistics.”

And he’ll contend that Americans’ pets in Springfield, Ohio are being eaten by migrants.

“A lot of towns don’t want to talk about it because they’re so embarrassed by it. In Springfield, they’re eating the dogs. The people that came in. 

Geraghty appears to see Trump as an unserious candidate, who took an unserious approach to last night's debate -- and it cost him, and his party. As for analysis of the debate itself, let's' turn back to The New York Times, where David Leonhardt and Ian Prasad write:

Debating has long been a Kamala Harris strength. It resembles courtroom argument, a core part of her career as a prosecutor. A debate helped her win her first statewide race in California, 14 years ago. In her only vice-presidential debate four years ago with Mike Pence, polls showed that she won.

And she certainly seemed to win last night’s debate with Donald Trump.

She was calm and forceful and repeatedly baited Trump into looking angry. As Trump told lies — about Obamacare, inflation, crime, immigrants eating household pets and more — she smiled, shook her head and then called him on the lies. She often looked directly at him or the camera; he seemed unwilling to look at her and looked mostly at the moderators.

During the debate, prediction markets shifted a few points toward Harris. Many political analysts, including conservatives, also judged Harris to be the winner — two-and-a-half months after many of those same analysts said Trump had trounced President Biden in their debate:

  • Y’all, this is not going well for Trump. Don’t get mad at me for saying so,” Erick Erickson, the conservative commentator, wrote on social media. He also accusing the moderators of being biased against Trump — a common Republican argument last night. (The Times’s media correspondent analyzed the moderators’ performance.)
  • “I think she’s winning this. She comes across as normal, clear, and strong. Trump can’t land a blow — he is blustering and unfocused,” Rod Dreher, the Christian conservative, wrote.
  • “Trump looked old tonight,” Chris Wallace, the longtime Fox News host who now works for CNN, said.
  • At least one person who isn’t a political analyst also seemed influenced by the night. “Like many of you, I watched the debate tonight,” Taylor Swift wrote on social media afterward. “I will be casting my vote for Kamala Harris and Tim Walz.”

Will it matter?

There are a couple of important caveats.

First, Harris didn’t have a perfect night. She often ignored the questions from ABC’s moderators — like the opening question about whether Americans are better off than four years ago, as well as questions about her changed positions on fracking and other subjects. She recited her talking points instead.

She made a few false or misleading statements (though many fewer than Trump), including about the unemployment rate when he left office. She described her policies in ways that weren’t always easy to understand. In Trump’s closing statement, he parried her many promises by pointing out that she has been vice president for three-and-a-half years and asked, “Why hasn’t she done it?”

Second, it is uncertain how much Harris’s strong overall performance will matter. “Hillary Clinton also won the debates against Donald Trump,” Julia Ioffe of Puck News noted. The same prediction markets that shifted toward Harris last night continue to show the election as a tossup. The debate’s impact will become more evident as new polls emerge in coming days. But Harris’s campaign seemed very pleased with how last night went.

More on tactics

  • Body language spoke loudly. The debate began with a handshake (Harris walked over and introduced herself to Trump, as they had never met in person). Later, she used her expressions to signal her distaste.
  • Many of Harris’s answers seemed aimed at Trump’s ego. She mocked his rallies as boring, and said that world leaders laughed at him and that he was “fired by 81 million people.” Trump at times appeared scattered and shouted into his microphone.
  • Trump spoke longer than Harris did overall, but Harris spent more time attacking Trump, as these charts show.
  • Harris’s campaign immediately challenged Trump to a second debate. Trump said he’d “have to think about it.”

More on issues

  • Abortion: Trump defended the overturning of Roe v. Wade and declined to say whether he would veto a national abortion ban. Harris deftly attacked Trump’s stance, but she declined to say whether she supported restrictions on abortion in the third trimester. (The Times’s Jonathan Swan noted, “Trump has made clear to advisers that he believes the abortion issue alone could cost him the election.”)
  • Threats to democracy: Trump refused to acknowledge that he lost the 2020 election and falsely claimed he had “nothing to do with” the Jan. 6 Capitol attack, blaming Nancy Pelosi.
  • Immigration: Trump repeatedly pivoted to discuss immigration, where polls favor him. Harris countered that Trump pushed Republicans to kill a bipartisan border-security bill, saying he “would prefer to run on a problem instead of fixing a problem.”
  • Ukraine: Trump wouldn’t say whether he wanted Ukraine to win the war with Russia. Harris said that Vladimir Putin would be “sitting in Kyiv” if Trump were president.
  • Health care: Asked if he had a plan to repeal and replace Obamacare, which he has promised for years, Trump said he had “concepts of a plan.”
  • Biden’s record: Harris largely deflected Trump’s efforts to link her to Biden, calling herself “a new generation of leadership.” But she defended Biden’s decision to withdraw from Afghanistan and much of his administration’s work.
  • Here are the night’s best, worst and most surprising lines and six takeaways.

Commentary

  • “Everything seemed to unfold on her terms, not his,” The Times Opinion columnist Lydia Polgreen argued. Here’s what otherOpinion writers thought about the debate.
  • The political consultant Frank Luntz praised the debate moderators, ABC’s David Muir and Linsey Davis, for “covering a wider range of topics than most debates. Perhaps it was because they knew this might be the only debate of this election cycle.”
  • ABC News was the “biggest loser” of the night and the moderators “embarrassed themselves” by only fact-checking Trump, Liz Peek wrote at Fox News.
  • “Trump has done nothing to capitalize on the fact that one-third of voters nationally (more in the swing states) feel like they don’t know enough about Harris. He is not defining her. He’s taking her bait,” National Review’s Noah Rothman wrote.
  • Late night hosts joked about the debate. “Harris got under his skin like she was stuffing in butter and rosemary. It was beautiful,” Stephen Colbert said.