The Three Debate Keys For Trump Tonight — And One for Kamala

Will tonight provide America with a clear choice for the presidential election and an inflection point in politics? Will it even prove consequential at all, or have voters already made up their minds about November?

We’ll all find out together. Donald Trump and Kamala Harris will hold their first — and so far only — presidential debate tonight at 9 pm ET. ABC News will host and moderate the debate, with David Muir and Linsey Davis asking the questions and enforcing the rules. Other than a 26-minute interview on CNN, this will also be the first time that Harris has faced adversarial questions since becoming the Democrat nominee. 

We will live blog the debate and the aftermath here at Hot Air, too! Join the entire staff tonight, starting around 8:30 ET, for the fun and frolic. We’ll also look for clips of the biggest moments to toss into the conversation. 

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Now let’s look at the debate strategies. Trump just came off a triumphant debate performance that most people scored as more of a forfeit. He knocked Joe Biden clean out of the race with a mostly disciplined approach, especially in the first half of the June 27 debate on CNN. Trump may be looking for a knockout blow again, but Mike Pence warns that Harris will not fare anywhere near as poorly as Biden did. However, Pence credits Trump with a smart strategy in the first debate and thinks he will win the night by sticking to that discipline:

“My advice to my old running mate is that he should challenge her to defend her record,” he said in broad strokes before offering Trump specific stage instructions: “Answer the question as quickly as you can, but then I think he should attack.”

It is a simple game plan on paper, but Trump remains a wildcard if nothing else. Despite all the distance between them now, Pence still believes his old friend has the discipline necessary to deliver. “President Trump is perfectly capable of focusing the debate on the Biden-Harris record,” he said before adding, “I thought he acquitted himself very well in the last debate with Biden,” an achievement that has largely been eclipsed in retrospect “by Biden’s disastrous performance.” …

“We went into that debate with the expectation that she would be formidable, that she would be poised, and that she would make her case,” he said of his debate with her in Salt Lake City, noting the thick policy binders and the many hours that went into his preparation.

“I think we were right about the first two things,” he said looking back, “and not really the third in this sense: She either can’t, or won’t, defend her record.”

Indeed. In fact, Harris isn’t even acknowledging her record, let alone defend it. She has yet to personally address the myriad positions she took in 2019 and 2020 on the extreme progressive end of the political spectrum. While professing to represent a “new way forward,” Harris literally plagiarized Joe Biden’s campaign website for her Issues presentation on her own platform. She’s a lightweight, as her declaration about “price gauging” demonstrated.

With that in mind, Trump has to come into this debate with three keys to success, as I discussed with my pal Tony Katz earlier today. Trump has the edge here as both the issues and the numbers are in his favor. He needs to stick to those:

1. Don’t get personal: Harris and the moderators will want to get Trump to return to his comments about Harris’ identity. He needs to avoid taking the bait and focus back on the issues.
2. Remind voters about Harris’ radical positions: Either Harris will have to recant them — in which case she’ll have to explain why, and what she believes now — or embrace them. Harris can’t ignore them if Trump brings them up.
3. Make Harris the incumbent: That should be easy as long as Harris remains elusive about policy. Every time she asserts that she will accomplish something in the next four years, Trump should respond, “Why aren’t you doing that now? You’re the current Vice President.”

For Harris, the task is simpler, but that doesn’t mean it’s easier. It’s now clear that Harris can’t defend or even argue policy; she couldn’t even do that much outside of an adversarial environment, let alone in a debate format. Her only play is to disqualify Trump by making him the only issue in this election. That’s the only way she can avoid getting pinned down on policy or on the record of the Biden-Harris administration, which is very unpopular with voters. Harris has to convince voters tonight that none of that matters, and that the only issue worth discussing is the threat Trump supposedly poses to democracy.

Of course, it’s tough to do that when you got the nomination by throwing out 50 state primaries and caucuses to get anointed by party bosses. Trump will likely have a response along those lines prepared, assuming Muir and Davis don’t ask about it as part of the debate. 

Besides, Democrats have run on that message for months. How has it worked? Not well; Trump has remained within the margins of error in the battleground states even while Harris got her nomination boost. Now that the joy seems to be evaporating, Trump has gained strength over the last couple of weeks, to the point where it seems clear that he has regained a front-runner position, albeit only slightly. The age of this argument works against Harris, especially while she remains a cipher to most voters, and a crypto-radical to others. If she can’t debate the issues and explain herself tonight, it might be the last real chance she has, unless she agrees to another debate later. 

Plus, today’s episode of The Ed Morrissey Show podcast is now up! Today’s show features:

• Will tonight be the only chance American voters get to see the two major-party nominees on the same stage? Perhaps that depends on what happens tonight. 
• Andrew Malcolm and I preview the debate between Kamala Harris and Donald Trump, and warn that low expectations may play into Harris’ hands. 
• We also talk about the other elections that aren’t getting nearly enough attention. 

The Ed Morrissey Show is now a fully downloadable and streamable show at  Spotify, Apple Podcasts, the TEMS Podcast YouTube channel, and on Rumble and our own in-house portal at the #TEMS page!