The News
After several weeks of US Vice President Kamala Harris seemingly in ascendance in national polls, she is now performing neck and neck with former President Donald Trump heading into their first presidential debate Tuesday.
According to the latest numbers from the well-respected New York Times/Siena poll, the race is basically tied, with Harris seeing no post-convention bump and Trump’s support practically unchanged. But the poll also identified a critical objective for the Harris campaign ahead of the ABC debate: The vice president has to tell voters who she is and what she stands for, and the debate is their best shot since the convention.
SIGNALS
Key Democratic voter blocs still don’t know enough about Harris
A major takeaway from The New York Times/Siena Poll is that voters are still getting to know Kamala Harris, Semafor’s Benjy Sarlin noted. Sarlin listened in on two focus groups featuring Trump-leaning and undecided Black and Hispanic voters last week, and found there was a general “sense of uncertainty over Harris’ plans.” The debate is a chance to clear the air and weave a coherent narrative around the vice president’s campaign, even if most would-be voters watching will likely remember only “key snippets” based on the headlines and clips that emerge afterwards, the Times noted.
Harris’ strategy to be the ‘adult in the room’
Going on the offensive against Trump by poking at his weak spots — and his “weirdness” — while remaining the “adult in the room” could be enough to win her the debate, Bloomberg columnist Timothy O’Brien argued. Harris should highlight Trump’s flip-flopping on abortion and reproductive rights, and even on border security, which has been the Democrats’ “Achilles’ heel,” as she can remind viewers that it was Trump who tanked a bipartisan immigration bill. That way, Harris can present herself as a “messenger for mature judgment,” he added.
Trump’s messaging will be under a brighter spotlight
Trump’s debate performances tend to be “graded on a curve,” The Washington Post’s chief political correspondent Dan Balz wrote, given how thoroughly voters have become used to some of his rougher tendencies. However, US President Joe Biden’s exit from the race may put him under stricter scrutiny, especially now that Trump is the older candidate whose “acuity” is a potential issue in the race. Republican strategists have warned him against personal attacks on Harris, lest it detracts from the “permission structure” some right-leaning, Trump-skeptic voters might need to vote for him, Politico noted. And while the debates and election “will be a test of whether he is wearing out his welcome,” Harris also “remains vulnerable to being defined negatively by Trump before she fills out her profile.”