Both Vice President Harris and former President Trump have their best chance of reshaping the White House campaign when they meet in Philadelphia on Tuesday for their first and perhaps only debate.
The debate comes against a backdrop of some signs that the honeymoon period Harris has enjoyed since winning the Democratic nomination may be coming to an end.
A New York Times/Siena College poll published Sunday showed Trump holding a one-percent lead among likely voters across the country. It was a refreshing reminder to Democrats, who had ridden a wave of relief and excitement for much of Harris’s candidacy, that the election remains extremely close.
A Pew Research Center poll on Monday showed a neck-and-neck race among registered voters: 49 percent supported Harris and 49 percent supported Trump.
In the national Survey average According to data from The Hill and Decision Desk HQ (DDHQ), Harris is ahead by just over 3 points.
In the seven swing states that will decide the outcome of the election, the margins are much tighter. Two of these states, Arizona and Georgia, are exactly tied, while in only one swing state does either candidate have a lead of more than two percentage points – Wisconsin, where Harris is 2.8 percentage points ahead.
The general perception about the debate is that candidates must do their best to avoid making earnest mistakes.
There is obviously some truth in this, considering how often in the past it was mistakes rather than outstanding achievements that were remembered on the debate stage.
The best example of this is President Biden’s disastrous performance in the June 27 confrontation with Trump in Atlanta – a debacle that set off a chain of events that led to Harris becoming the Democratic candidate.
However, the candidates may also have the opportunity to go on the offensive on Tuesday.
This is especially true for Harris, who appears to have a better chance than Trump of winning over voters with positive arguments for her candidacy.
In the New York Times-Siena College poll, 28 percent of likely voters said they needed to know more about Harris, about three times the 9 percent who said the same about Trump.
At the very least, these numbers suggest there is a curiosity about Harris that simply doesn’t exist about Trump, who has been the central figure in American politics since he first tried to reach the White House in 2015.
But there are also clear weaknesses for the vice president – potential weaknesses that will either be mitigated or exacerbated by the debate.
For example, the Pew poll found that Trump had a 10-point lead when voters were asked which candidate they trusted to “make good decisions on economic policy.” He had a similar 7-point lead when voters were asked how confident he would be to “make wise decisions on immigration policy.”
These numbers reflect Biden’s weakness on both issues – and how closely Harris is linked to him as his deputy.
It is considered particularly vulnerable on the immigration issue because it played a prominent role in combating the root causes of migration from Central America during the early years of the Biden administration.
For Harris, the broader question is how to explain her tendency to change her policy positions.
She moved to the center on fracking, health care reform and the criminalization of border crossings. In her only major television interview with CNN since her nomination as the Democratic candidate, Harris emphasized that her “values have not changed.”
But in the confrontational atmosphere of a debate, she could come under even more pressure than from her CNN interviewee Dana Bash.
Harris has the opportunity to score points, but also simply to dispel doubts. According to the Pew poll, abortion is a politically critical issue for her. Voters give her 11 percentage points more credit than Trump when it comes to “making good decisions on abortion policy.”
And just as importantly, Harris, a former prosecutor nearly 20 years younger than Trump, can be expected to put in a far stronger performance on the debate stage than Biden did in the June 27 clash.
In an interview with the Rickey Smiley Morning Show that aired Monday, Harris said there was “no lower limit” for Trump. She also said she wanted to “point out [that] He tends to fight for himself, not for the American people.”
From Trump’s perspective, he will almost certainly come under pressure for his unfounded claims of widespread voter fraud in the 2020 election, as well as for the threats he has made regarding this year’s election.
In a social media post on Saturday, Trump suggested that anyone who “CHEATED” in this year’s election could be prosecuted and given “long-term prison sentences.” What Trump meant by this was, as is often the case, unclear, but many Americans will recognize a hint of authoritarianism in this general threat.
Nevertheless, Trump has attacked Harris harshly during the election campaign. There are more moderate Republicans who fear that attacks on Harris’ intelligence or personality could backfire on swing voters.
Trump’s aides suggest he may focus on Harris’ record.
In an emailed statement, Trump’s senior adviser Jason Miller said: “Harris must both explain the damage she has done to our economy as Vice President and provide an answer as to why she has not implemented any of these new plans over the past three and a half years.”
Miller, who also accused Harris’ campaign aides of keeping her away from the media, added: “One thing we do know, however, is that Kamala Harris’ values have not changed, and we will educate the American public in detail about what that means politically.”
In a race as close as this year, every moment of Tuesday’s debate could matter – and reverberate all the way to Election Day.
The Memo is a column by Niall Stanage.
