A version of this article originally appeared on Jonathan Alter’s substack Old Goats, which you can subscribe to here.
As Tuesday’s debate approaches, Democrats are once again wringing their hands over a new poll showing the race is a dead heat. Even the polls that continue to have Kamala Harris up by two or three points are cold comfort: That’s still within the margin of error. And in 2016 and 2020, Donald Trump did better than the polls showed.
But in neither of those elections was the Democratic base as fired up as it is now. And no one seems to remember that Barack Obama — whose appeal overlaps with Harris’s — sharply outperformed polls that signaled a dead heat on the eve of the 2012 election.
My anxiety is less about the polls than about how Trump, who has six one-on-one debates under his belt, will perform. The now-historic June 27th debate is remembered for Joe Biden being horrible. Alas, there was more to it than that. Some of the post-debate commentary noted that Trump lied his ass off and got no bump. But he told his lies fluidly and commanded the stage.
Will he do the same on Tuesday in Philadelphia or is he so discombobulated by Harris that he’ll lose his connection to the audience amid a torrent of rancid non-sequiturs?
On Saturday alone, as Ron Filipkowski, editor in chief of MeidasTouch.com, reminded us: Trump wished the Virgin Mary Happy Birthday, pitched Hulk Hogan’s beer, talked about Hannibal Lecter, said he will imprison people he thinks are cheating, called Elon Musk “Leon,” forgot Doug Burgum’s name (even though he’d been on his shortlist for VP), and called Keystone “Keystown” and Tampon “Tampom.”
There’s a school of thought that this act is old. “He formerly seemed more ominous and threatening, which, whatever its political drawbacks, signaled strength,” Peter Wehner wrote in The Atlantic. “Now he seems not just old but low-energy, stale, even pathetic. He has become the political version of Fat Elvis.”
Of course, Fat Elvis still sold out his Vegas dates, and it’s hard to mock Trump as a loser — the recommendation of Wehner and others — when he’s furiously mocking “Tampon Tim” Walz, even if he’s mispronouncing the feminine hygiene product. If the debate descends into a mockathon, Harris loses.
Unfortunately, age has not slowed the water pressure of Trump’s fire hose, which now sprays accusations that Harris is — wait for it — a liar.
My guess is that on Tuesday he’ll echo his TV ads by saying that Harris is lying when she says she doesn’t want to raise taxes and cut Social Security; lying when she denies wanting to let millions of illegal immigrants receive benefits; lying by saying she never favored making illegal immigration legal; lying by connecting Trump to Project 2025, which Trump insists he’s “never heard of”; flip-flopping on fracking, which Trump wrongly claims employs 500,000 people in Pennsylvania (the real number is 24,000); flip-flopping on Medicare, where he falsely claims she cast the tie-breaking vote to cut $266 billion from “your Medicare.” And on and on…
Obviously, Harris won’t respond to most of this. If it hasn’t stuck in ads, it won’t stick in the debate. Engaging with each lie just increases the odds they will show up in the post-debate clips. Maybe she’ll borrow from Mary McCarthy, the midcentury intellectual who said during her feud with Lillian Hellman, “Every word is a lie including ‘if,’ ‘an,’ and ‘but.’” More likely, she’ll say “same old tired playbook,” as she did in Dana Bash’s CNN interview. The problem is, that was in response to Trump’s racial slur, which demanded no reply. A lie about Medicare does. Without swinging at every pitch or seeming defensive, Harris has to cogently respond to at least some of Trump’s lies. If she doesn’t, much of the audience will believe they’re true, or at least be distracted by them.
Don’t expect the moderators, David Muir and Linsey Davis of ABC News, who have no experience covering politics, to focus on January 6 or otherwise hold Trump accountable for his lying depravity. Trump is trying to intimidate their boss, Bob Iger, CEO of Disney. Iger isn’t easily cowed but with half the country behind Trump, you can bet the moderators will apply the false equivalence that bedevils so much of the media coverage of this campaign.
After Harris and her team failed last week to change the rules to unmute the mics so she could cut in on Trump’s bullshit, it leaked that they were “reevaluating” their debate strategy. They know that, at a minimum, the vice president must tell some of her personal story and put a little flesh on the bones of her policy proposals. That’s what the voters, according to polls, want her to do. But she has to execute on the positive side and stay calm and counterpunch. That’s a lot to ask in one debate performance.
On Sunday, Pete Buttigieg admitted on CNN’s State of the Union that Harris faced “an extremely challenging task in the face of all of the distraction.” I don’t think Buttigieg was just lowering expectations when he said: “She is a very focused and disciplined leader. But it will take almost superhuman focus and discipline to deal with Donald Trump in a debate…He’s a master of taking any form or format that is on television and turning it into a show that is all about him.”
Buttigieg faced Harris in debates in 2019 and took part in her vice-presidential debate prep in 2020. He says she is skilled at bringing the conversation back to the kitchen table. That’s important, but she must do more than ignore Trump’s noise and re-focus the debate on the future of the middle class.
The most important skill in any debate is the pivot from quick response to sharp counterattack. Debates are won on offense. One old chestnut is indisputably true: If you’re explaining, you’re losing.
Buttigieg is usually terrific on TV but Harris will have to do a lot better than his wordy, analytical answer on CNN to the inevitable question of the 13 U.S. servicemen killed at Abbey Gate outside the Kabul airport in 2021, which Trump and House Republicans have thrust back into the news. After expressing sympathy, Harris should attack Trump for trashing Gold Star families, stupidly inviting the Taliban to Camp David, and cutting a deal with terrorists that General Frank McKenzie, the head of Central Command, called “pernicious.”
Will Harris nail that and everything else she needs to accomplish? Who knows. But before you get too depressed, remember that debates are rarely decided on policy specifics. They are, instead, about broad impressions. I’m confident she can do well on the four most important things voters are looking for in her:
Toughness: Americans don’t vote for candidates who look weak. They need to see that Harris has, well, cojones. That means indicting Trump on TV for at least a few of his many crimes. As a former prosecutor, she knows how to do that.
Presidential bearing: This is like Justice Potter Stewart’s definition of obscenity in a 1964 Supreme Court case: “I know it when I see it.” Voters make a judgment on whether a newcomer to presidential debates — think Jimmy Carter in 1976, Bill Clinton in 1992, Barack Obama in 2008, or Harris this year — looks as if they belong on stage. Can we picture them in a crisis? Carter, Clinton, and Obama all crossed that threshold and I’m confident Harris will, too.
Happy Warrior: Never underestimate the political importance of grinning. Like FDR, Carter, Reagan, and Obama, Harris knows how to take the edge off a sharp answer with her high-wattage smile. On paper, the “Same old, tired playbook. Next question, please” answer to Dana Bash seemed a little snippy. But on camera, Harris smiled broadly, and it was her best line of the night.
Maturity: This is not usually a factor in presidential debates. But if Trump acts petulant and childish, and focuses more on his grievances than his ideas for the future, then Harris will be seen as the adult in the room. While that might not be enough to secure a close election, it should be enough to win the debate.
Jonathan Alter is an award-winning author, political analyst, documentary filmmaker, columnist, television producer, and radio host. He’s authored three New York Times bestsellers: The Center Holds: Obama and His Enemies (2013), The Promise: President Obama, Year One (2010), and The Defining Moment: FDR’s Hundred Days and the Triumph of Hope (2006). His most recent book is His Very Best: Jimmy Carter, a Life (2020). Alter has written for the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Washington Monthly, the New Yorker, Bloomberg, the Daily Beast, and other publications.
