Trump vs Harris Debate: Unbiased Analysis

Kamala did exactly what she needed to do...

First off, my personal views on politics are as unbiased as you will find. I don’t care about Trump or Harris. I don’t care about Republicans or Democrats. I care about the country and how political decisions will affect normal Americans and markets. Now…

Kamala Harris won this debate, and by a decent margin. Trump started off strong for the first 10 or 15 minutes, but as time went on Kamala began to settle in and Trump started to run off the track. He consistently went off on tangents and couldn’t keep his composure. At times it sounded as if he was speaking to an audience of his base at a campaign rally, instead of a national audience and swing voters.

The major theme of this debate was Kamala’s ability to bait Trump into speaking off-topic and putting him on defense. Across almost every issue, Kamala was able to throw out bait and get Trump to bite... hook, line and sinker. Even on immigration, Trump’s strongest issue and Kamala’s weakest, she avoided taking responsibility for the border and instead slipped in a mention of Trump’s crowd sizes. This caused Trump to then spend the first minute of his response defending how big his crowds are, when he should have been hammering her border policy and the record illegal immigration under her watch. It was incredibly effective. Kamala didn’t really have to do much in her own regard and she actually pivoted around answering most questions directly. Her gameplan was simply to get Trump irritated and off-topic… and it worked. Trump’s weakness has always been his ego and he simply couldn’t get it under control once she set him off.

Kamala absolutely nailed her answer on abortion, her best segment of the night. While this was largely expected (as she is a woman and holds the more popular view on the issue), she still exceeded expectations. I’m sure they practiced that answer countless times and she was able to put serious pressure on Trump with it. He responded fairly well to be fair, trying to sell it as a state issue where the people could now vote on it, but he’ll simply never win on abortion.

Quickly on the moderators…

I hate when people complain and cry about media bias because it’s simply part of the game and understood by everyone. It’s the reason Kamala won’t do a debate on Fox News (and why Trump didn’t want to do this debate on ABC). However, the ABC moderators were clearly over the top. Fact-checking Trump live and hitting him with several follow up questions, while doing almost none of the same to Kamala. She blatantly lied several times about the unemployment rate when they took office and the Trump tariffs that they kept in place. She also repeated the lie that Trump called neo-Nazis “very fine people”. This is one of the most famous lies that the moderators clearly knew was false, yet they didn’t once say she was wrong or misleading. At times it almost felt like a 3 vs 1 debate. Regardless, it’s Trump job to manage himself and overcome any bias, and he failed.

More important than the moderators were the questions themselves. A massive amount of time was spent discussing and rehashing past comments made by Trump. This was honestly pathetic in my view. This was a 2024 debate for President. Trump has not been in office for 4 years now and they spent more time discussing inappropriate comments he made (which we’ve already discussed for years) than the inflation, illegal immigration or foreign wars we are currently involved in.

For example, somehow there was not ONE question on Kamala covering up Biden’s cognitive decline. This is actually important. When did she first notice his decline? Why did she lie about how capable he was behind closed doors? Why did she say Biden could absolutely lead for another 4 years immediately following the first debate just 8 weeks ago, and then take his place? They didn’t even bother to mention that Biden’s decline is the only reason she was now standing on the stage in the first place, or the fact that she became the new Democratic nominee without a single vote cast. Nate Silver mentioned the same:

One of the major weak points for Kamala last night were her constant facial expressions and animated movements. I was surprised that her team didn’t coach her to control them more. While her base might love to see those things, most swing voters (and especially men) do not like it. It does not signal the style of a President or leader, and visual aspects matter much more than most people think.

So how will this debate actually impact the election?

Kamala performed well and did exactly what she needed to do. She made Trump appear angry and not in control. I mentioned last week that the polling was starting to pick up for Trump with Kamala’s honeymoon ending and that she had a huge opportunity to turn the tide in this debate. Her debate performance wasn’t a knockout punch, but it certainly may stop the bleeding. While Trump lost and looked bad, it was not a catastrophic event like Biden’s debate in June. This debate won’t shift the polls 5-10 points like that one did, but it may absolutely shift the polls by 1-2 points, and that is exactly what the Harris campaign needed. If she isn’t able to tighten the race in the next week or so after this, maybe the country just doesn’t want her.

I expect a bump for Harris in the polls and this race to tighten up once again.