When John F Kennedy and Richard Nixon faced off for a television debate in 1960, both candidates were new and fresh. Nixon blew a six-point lead with a poor performance and it took 16 years until candidates could agree to debate again.
For most incumbent presidents debates are a disaster. In 2024, with most people around the world feeling grumpy, it pays to be the challenger. Incumbency for every government, from Modi in India to Macron in France, is political arsenic.
The Trump/Harris debate was an arm wrestle between two candidates with experience in the White House, but only Donald Trump came across as the outsider. His performance was predictable. It was a more disciplined version of his stock standard rally speech.
Harris outperformed expectations and addressed concerns she may not be up to the job. However, she spent most of the debate either defending Biden policies or attacking Trump. At this stage it won’t be enough.
Until now, polls have both candidates neck and neck. Democrats got a massive bounce out of Biden’s resignation, as the despair about Biden turned into hope with Harris. But the widely anticipated surge after the successful Democratic National Convention in Chicago never eventuated. Harris still remained a policy mystery. For four days everyone spoke about Harris, but she had less than an hour explaining herself and her policies to the electorate.
Harris has avoided tough media and adopted the small target approach of Biden in 2020. That won’t be enough. Biden was well known to most Americans who were uninterested in the daily Washington DC wash. Harris remains comparatively unknown.
It’s the reality that the Democrats need to win the popular vote by more than 2 per cent over the Republicans in order to win the electoral college that chooses the president. Harris hasn’t got that lead yet. She seems to flatline without a big enough margin.
While Trump lost the debate, nothing said or done during the nearly two hours of talk will shift votes between Harris and Trump. If you were voting for either candidate then your vote is unlikely to change.
Trump didn’t screw up and he was his authentic self. If he came out looking like he was souped up on tranquillisers then his voters would have thought he was a fraud. If he was condescending and snarly he would’ve burned off some crucial female voters.
From a presentation perspective, Trump needed to avoid being rude. He was reasonably coherent and effective. Harris needed to be calm and strong. Her personal attacks on Trump were targeted and well researched.
It remains the case that the most important voting demographic for Trump is white women. In 2016 and 2020, he received more of their votes than either Hillary Clinton or Biden. In the election he lost to Biden, too many white women gave up on him and his behaviour.
They are the demographic most attuned to cost-of-living pressures and national security. Trump’s strong words on the exit from Afghanistan and his closure of the Mexican border resonate with these voters. At the same time, they don’t like a bully and Trump was saved from himself by the mute button which the Harris campaign didn’t want.
Similarly, an overly aggressive Harris would have turned off her soft vote supporters. It’s much harder for a woman to be aggressive, but Harris performed well in that environment.
This election, more than ever, is about voter turnout. Trump was correct to say he has won more votes than any other candidate for president, apart from Biden in 2020. I suspect Trump will lose few of those votes.
Was there anything said or done by the candidates in this presidential debate that will cause an undecided voter to get off the couch and go and stand for three hours waiting to vote in a queue, in the chilly conditions of a Wisconsin, Pennsylvania or Michigan autumn? No.
It’s more likely that this election will be decided on policies rather than personalities – and the personality vote is now locked in. For the voters who really matter, the issues discussed in the debate were often peripheral. According to the Pew Research Centre, the No.1 issue for American voters is the economy.
It was the first issue discussed and the debate was orderly and useful. Both candidates prosecuted their cases successfully. After that came abortion. It’s not in the top seven issues for voters.
The abortion vote is already locked in. If it is the deciding issue for a voter, they are already locked in to their candidate. People who have a strong view either way have already decided how they will vote. Similarly, the January 6 vote is locked in, as is the Trump is a criminal vote, the Trump rudeness vote and the Trump is a liar vote.
It took forever to get to health, education, foreign policy, violent crime and immigration.
With all of that, why is the race still too close to call? For too many voters, Harris is still a mystery. Voters want change and Harris has just 55 days to explain why she is different to Biden. We know she is very different to Trump but that’s not enough. She needs to distance herself from Biden and on only two issues she was effective with that – small business and housing.
Trump showed he is different to the Biden/Harris administration on immigration, taxes, tariffs, foreign relations with China, NATO and foreign adversaries, student loans and Ukraine.
On guns and fracking, Harris wants to be close to Trump. On health, Trump wants to be close to Harris. Welfare didn’t get a mention, which would have benefited Harris. Addressing the surge of fentanyl didn’t get much attention either and that would have helped Trump.
Everyone knows Trump and what he stands for. Harris is still too much of a mystery. This election is still too close to call.
Joe Hockey served as treasurer of Australia from 2013-15. He was Australian ambassador to the US from 2016-20.
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