On September 10, 2024, former President Donald Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris met in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania for their first, and possibly only, presidential debate. Over 67 million people watched the debate on ABC that night, according to Nielsen. After the previous debate between Biden and Trump, which was so disastrous for Biden that it likely contributed to his resignation from the presidential race, this debate was highly anticipated. This would be Kamala Harris’s first presidential debate past the primaries, and would be her most major public moment since she replaced Biden as the nominee. For many voters who did not know as much about her, this was her chance to present her plans and establish a different standard for 2024’s Democratic candidate. For former President Donald Trump, the debate was another possible opportunity to win over support or to further weaken his campaign.
Both candidates had their advantages and disadvantages. Many polls before the debate showed that people trusted Donald Trump more with the struggling economy, with an ABC News/Ipsos poll finding Trump ahead by 8 points, 38% to 46%, over Harris in terms of handling the economy. According to Reuters, the economy is the most commonly cited major concern for Americans with about 68% of Harris supporters and 93% of Trump supporters citing it as a very important issue. This also applied to immigration, a less pressing but still prevalent issue for 82% of Trump supporters and 39% of Harris supporters. With a heavier focus on the economy during the debate, and with the “more coherent appearance” that Trump had when he debated Biden, Trump would have an advantage. However, with Harris having gained traction against a still mostly unpopular Donald Trump, and with a chance to present new plans and a more youthful and coordinated appearance, Harris would very easily have the ability to overpower Trump, especially given her past debate skills.
The debate had a multitude of noteworthy moments on both sides. One of the most impactful was the promotion of a conspiracy theory involving Haitian immigrants in Springfield, Ohio, in which a viral post on X showed a screenshot from facebook of a man, rumored to be Haitian, holding a bird as he walked down the street. While this event did not occur in Springfield, and the man’s ethnicity was unknown, this post was reposted on Reddit and spread rapidly. In an attempt to slander Harris’s immigration policy, Trump brought this theory into the mainstream by claiming that “They’re eating the dogs, the people that came in, they’re eating the cats. They’re eating the pets of the people that live there, and it’s a shame.” This claim, in an attempt to further paint Kamala Harris as far left, was also followed by claims that “Now she wants to do transgender operations on illegal immigrants that are in prison.” Though the comments about Springfield were taken humorously even by Harris herself, the anti-immigrant sentiment in the town began to expand to the point where a Haitian nonprofit group invoked the right to press charges against Donald Trump and his Vice Presidential nominee J.D. Vance over the threats that their false claims inspired. Outside of these most notable claims, the path that Trump could set on to remain the more coherent candidate was quickly unraveled as he was baited by Harris about crowd sizes and his own previous election loss. Harris coupled this baiting with attacks on the former president’s abortion stance and his potential support for enacting a nationwide abortion ban. Harris consistently remained on track, retaliating when necessary but making sure to focus on her own view of working toward the future. Former President Trump had strong attacks of his own. Harris did not as willingly address the economy or an economic plan, something Trump would eventually attack. His strongest attack came from his closing statement, in which he criticized the Vice President for her inaction during the last 3 ½ years of the Biden presidency “Why hasn’t she done it? She’s been there for three and a half years. They’ve had three and half years to fix the border. They’ve had three and half years to create jobs”. His argument aimed to associate Harris with President Joe Biden’s perceived weaknesses and tie Harris closer to the hardships that her own affiliated administration had already failed to properly address.
After the debate, the winner was clear. A CNN Poll found that 63% of debate watchers agreed that Harris had won the debate, compared to 37% saying Trump performed better. Additionally, 96% of Harris supporters believed their candidate had done better in the debate as opposed to 69% of Trump supporters with their candidate. With a victory for Kamala Harris, her chance of winning the election has improved. This is especially after chances staggered and declined after the end of her “honeymoon phase” post-nomination and Robert F. Kennedy’s resignation from the presidential race, which led to more voters leaning towards Trump. Before the debate, according to Silver Bullet, Harris’s probability of an electoral college win was 35%, but twelve days after the debate, these odds rose to 54%. Morning Consult now has Harris winning in 6 battleground states in the most recent polls, with statewide margins between 2 points in North Carolina to 7 points in Nevada. This race, however, remains as close as ever, with both sides’ supporter bases appearing not to budge in their conviction towards their candidates. As such, this debate is hardly a deciding factor in an election that is now less than 40 days away.
Junior Chessie Bovasso is a Staff Writer. Her email is fbovasso@fandm.edu.