Trump's debate fumble let Harris redefine the race

[Thiệu Ngô]

Donald Trump didn't just lose the debate to Kamala Harris.
The former president fumbled one of the last major moments of the campaign.
Trump can survive one bad night, but not if he fails to fix what went wrong.

Analysis by Brent D. Griffiths

Donald Trump lost the debate to Kamala Harris. He can recover from a bad night, but the more troubling trend is that the former president has struggled to mount the most basic case against her.

With more than 67 million Americans watching, Trump failed to seize one of, if not the last, remaining major moments of the campaign. Harris has now enjoyed a few good days of headlines, a welcome development when her summer momentum appeared to be fading.

Democrats want nothing more than to turn the 2024 race into a decision about Trump, running back the message from four years ago. Trump and Republicans would like to tie Harris to President Joe Biden's unpopularity, banking on voter apathy with the economy and a broader longing for a pre-COVID-19 world.

Trump hit this theme directly, questioning why Harris is promising to fix immigration and the economy when she's already in office.

"Why hasn't she done it? She's been there for 3 1/2 years," he said.

But he only really got there in his closing statement — the political equivalent of a garbage time touchdown.

"Look, I think he absolutely, his closing statement was a critical piece of the debate because he drove home the entire message up to that point which is Kamala Harris says she wants to do all these great things, Kamala Harris is currently the vice president of the United States, why isn't she doing it now?" Republican vice presidential nominee Sen. JD Vance said on CNBC's "Squawk Box" on Thursday morning.

Vance praised his running mate's performance, though not everyone in Trump's orbit is as enthused. The New York Times reported that several Trump advisors "saw the night as a colossal missed opportunity." Publicly, even a few Trump usual defenders had some criticism.

"What I was hoping for was: 'When I left we had the most secure border in 40 years, mortgage rates were below three percent, gas was $1.87, the Abraham Accords, energy independent, you screwed it all up," Sen. Lindsey Graham told Politico.

Harris' goading of Trump helped push him off course. Trump even muddled the most basic attack on connecting Harris to Biden, claiming at one point that Biden "hates" his own vice president. (Don't ask Mike Pence about that.)

According to The New York Times, Harris spent 46% of her time attacking Trump. While he spent just 29% of his time doing the same. It's a stat line that drew the attention of famous Bush advisor Karl Rove, who pronounced the night "a train wreck." Trump, an acolyte of Roy Cohn, forgot the controversial lawyer's most famous adage to "Attack, Attack, Attack" when he needed it the most.

Trump spoke for more than five minutes longer than Harris. And yet, it's hard to say that advantage mattered when you see how he spent his time. He talked about his rally crowd sizes ("We have the biggest rallies"), his Ivy League education ("Look, I went to the Wharton School of Finance"), Hunter and Joe Biden ("They get all this money from Ukraine"), and even why the people he fired write negative tell-alls ("Because with me they can write books").

And yes, he pushed the bizarre and debunked theory that Haitian migrants are eating people's pets in a small Ohio town.

"They're eating the pets of the people that live there," he said.

At his first major post-debate rally, Trump was still talking about the animals.

Harris took full advantage of Trump's missteps

Incredibly, Harris has adopted the mantle of generational change despite Democrats controlling the White House for the majority of the last decade, including, obviously, right now.

"It is important that we move forward, that we turn the page on this same old tired rhetoric," Harris said at one point,

Trump's best hope is that Harris left voters still confused about where she stands. A pre-debate New York Times-Siena poll found that 28% of likely voters wanted to learn more about Harris, while perceptions of Trump were largely set.

As expected, the debate moderators pressed Harris to change her stances on fracking, gun buybacks, and immigration. She promised to "discuss every one—at least every point that you've made." Instead, she briefly discussed her flip-flop on banning fracking before ending with an attack on Trump's inheritance. And as he did, all night, Trump took the bait, spending the first part of his rebuttal defending the money his father gave him.

Harris is set to barnstorm swing states this weekend.

Harris and her running mate Tim Walz are in their "New Way Forward Tour" as the Democratic ticket and their spouses blanket the small number of states that will decide this race. Harris has visited North Carolina and Pennslyvania, while Walz stopped in Michigan and Wisconsin. Their spouses, second gentleman Doug Emhoff and Minnesota first lady Gwen Walz, combined hit Nevada, Arizona, Florida, Georgia, New Hampshire, and Maine.

According to Politico, Harris will also grant more interviews amid the campaign blitz.

As for Trump, he campaigned in Arizona on Thursday and Michigan on Friday, both states he carried in 2016 but lost to Biden four years later.

Harris continues to have a slight lead in the major national polling averages, but the race remains even closer in key swing states.

It's unlikely that there will be any more major head-to-head moments in the race. Walz and Vance are set to debate on October 1, but traditionally the vice presidential debates don't garner as much attention. After reversing himself many times, Trump declared before the weekend that he would not debate Harris again.

It remains to be seen if Trump can find his footing during his often long and meandering rally speeches. If he can't, his next big disappointing night could be November 5.