Sole Trump-Harris debate could prove game-changer as both seek a knock-out

Former President Donald Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris are set to square off Tuesday evening in the ABC News debate, a showdown that could prove decisive in the battle for the White House.

After Trump’s decisive debate win against President Joe Biden earlier this year prompted enough pressure from Biden's own party to force him to drop out of the race entirely, the pressure is on for Harris to show that she can hold her own against the Republican standard bearer. For Trump, the debate will prove an opportunity to knock his new opponent, who currently holds a narrow lead in most national polls, down a peg.

At present, the debate is set to be the only set contest between the pair during the election cycle. Though Trump proposed a number of other debates, the Harris campaign did not agree and the only other scheduled face-off is the vice presidential debate between Sen. JD Vance, R-Ohio, and Gov. Tim Walz, D-Minn. That debate will take place on Oct. 1 on CBS News.

State of the race

At present, Harris maintains a razor-thin lead over Trump in national polling, though some recent surveys have suggested her momentum has faded somewhat. She currently holds a 1.3% lead in the RealClearPolitics polling average, earning 48.3% support to Trump’s 47.0%. The two most recent surveys making up that metric, however, show Trump either tied with or ahead of the vice president.

The margins are comparably narrow in many key swing states. In the RCP electoral projection, Trump currently leads in North Carolina and Arizona, while Harris holds leads in Georgia, Michigan, Wisconsin, and Nevada. Pennsylvania is currently a dead heat.

With nearly every swing state well inside the margin of error, it may take only a small shift in public opinion to tilt the final result of the election. The June debate between Trump and Biden drew an estimated 51.27 million viewers, according to CBS News. Set to be the only debate between Trump and Harris, Tuesday's squareoff is likely to be the best chance for either candidate to contrast themselves with their opponent in front of an audience sizable enough to have a decisive impact.

Trump and Harris’s debate records

The Republican candidate will take the stage fresh off of a major victory in his last debate. The June contest saw Trump defeat Biden handily. During the contest, the latter often appeared lost on stage and stumbled over his answers, reigniting longstanding concerns over Biden’s mental and physical fitness for office, that many Democrats, including Harris, claimed were inaccurate. The Washington Post reported that more than a week after Biden's self-immolation, "Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Calif.), 85, drew a standing ovation at Essence Fest over the weekend when she said 'it’s going to Biden' and 'ain’t going to be no other Democratic candidate.'”

While Republicans had long pointed to Biden’s apparent cognitive and physical decline, the public performance resulted in even high-profile Democrats raising concerns over the matter and ultimately prompted sufficient intra-party pressure to make Biden bow out of the race and endorse Harris to succeed him.

Harris, for her part, has not participated in a debate since her 2020 face-off against then-Vice President Mike Pence. While that event was far from lopsided, Harris did notch a viral moment during which she curtly rebuked Pence for interrupting her, saying “I’m speaking.”

Her 2020 primary debates, however, were a mixed bag. Though she briefly gained traction in the Democratic primary by attacking Biden over bussing policy decades prior, she also was forced on the defensive when former Hawaii Democratic Rep. Tulsi Gabbard eviscerated her record as a prosecutor.

To prepare for the debate, Trump has reportedly enlisted Gabbard, as well as Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fla., to grill him in mock debates on tough issues. Gaetz, ABC News reported, has pressed Trump in particular on his many legal woes.

Lines of attack

Trump is almost certain to continue his line of argument that Harris is essentially an incumbent and bears responsibility for the current state of the nation under Biden’s tenure. 

“He is looking forward to focusing on Kamala Harris’ record,” Gabbard said Monday during an appearance on Fox News. “Why hasn’t she fixed the things that she is now saying are broken, over the last three and a half years? She is the incumbent candidate in this race.”

It won’t merely be a link between Harris and Biden, however. Biden ostensibly tasked Harris with dealing with the influx of illegal immigrants, naming her the “border czar,” and the Trump campaign has worked to pin the situation entirely on her since she took the top slot on the Democratic ticket. The Harris campaign has tried to distance her from the border crisis, and have attempted to minimize the appointment and insisted she was merely responsible for addressing the root causes of migration.

But the Trump campaign will not let her forget the appointment and, as recently as Monday, campaigned on the threat of “Kamala migrants” committing crimes in American cities.

“It's all coming to your city if Kamala Harris is elected in November,” the campaign warned. Trump is expected to employ the same line of argument.

Harris concealing key policy positions

Ahead of the debate, Trump seized on comments from Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., suggesting that Harris had embraced more centrist positions merely to appear palatable to the general electorate. Harris’s 2016 presidential campaign saw her run on a decidedly progressive agenda and her senatorial voting record has been widely characterized as to the left of Sanders.

The Vermont senator, for his part, insisted this week that Harris’s about-face on backing Medicare-for-all and a fracking ban did not signal that “she’s abandoning her ideals,” adding that “she’s trying to be pragmatic and doing what she thinks is right in order to win the election.”

Trump pointed to those comments, saying he “[e]ssentially said, very clearly, that she is a total phony.”

“Once a Marxist, always a Marxist!” he continued, also warning that “[s]he’ll change back very quickly!”

Since emerging as the Democratic standard bearer, Harris has attracted considerable scrutiny over her myriad policy adjustments, including on a fracking ban, Medicare-for-all, decriminalizing border crossings, defunding the police, building a border wall and other keynote issues. 

With the matter of Harris’s authenticity recently refreshed in the news cycle, Trump is likely to paint his opponent as untrustworthy and her answers as not representative of her actual views.

Could personal attacks backfire?

Republican strategists have worried that an overly aggressive strategy from Trump comparable to his approach with Biden could backfire against Harris. Though they have urged the president to assume the persona of “happy Trump” instead of “mean, bully Trump,” he appears inclined to stick with a critical approach, The New York Times reported.

“I’m not going to let her do to me what she did to Mike,” Trump reportedly said, in reference to Harris’s “I’m speaking” remark.

The prospect of Trump coming off as a bully appears to have at least some analysts nervous.

“I think — I pray — he can be disciplined,” former Vivek Ramaswamy campaign communications director Tricia McLaughlin told Politico.

Debate rules could hinder Harris

The prospect of an overbearing Trump hurting himself through impulsive interruptions may be somewhat limited, however, as the debate will see moderators mute candidates’ microphones when their opponent is speaking.

Such rules were in effect during the June debate between Trump and Biden and the current rules were negotiated when Biden was still the candidate, Politico reported. The Harris campaign made a last-minute effort to change the rules, hoping to take advantage of Trump’s penchant for interrupting and to also let Harris go on offense. But that effort failed and some Harris aides privately worry she will be “handcuffed” by the debate rules.

“Trump’s worst moments in the debates are when he gets upset and snaps. And they have neutered that,” one aide who declined to be named told the outlet.