Kamala Harris lands more punches, but debate referee was biased

Kamala Harris following the presidential debate. Picture: AFP

The debate between Kamala Harris and Donald Trump posed two key challenges for each candidate.

For Harris, could she avoid a big gaffe and, at the same time, add policy substance to the joy-vibe of her stalled campaign? For Trump, could he avoid bullying his black female opponent and craft an appeal to the independent voters he needs to win back the White House? How did they meet these challenges? Trump mostly failed and Harris mostly succeeded. This neither ruins his chances nor guarantees hers. But Democrats will be happier than Republicans following the debate.

I scored the fight like a boxing match, across 10 rounds, corresponding to 10 areas. (Note: this boxing ring did not have a neutral referee and this undoubtedly ­protected Harris. I’ll come back to this point.)

Round 1: Economy. Harris 9 – Trump 8. She held his better record more to account than he did her poor one.

Round 2: Abortion: 9-8. The animation of true belief. Harris has this. Trump is agnostic on the issue and doesn’t grasp why handing it back to the states is not more popular.

Round 3: Immigration: 9-8. There’s no way Harris should’ve gotten away with this. Trump wandering into stories of illegal immigrants eating family dogs was not his best moment.

Round 4: Law and order: 9-8. Harris was better rehearsed on this one. Trump had no counterpunch, despite his love of this ­subject.

Round 5: Climate: 10-8. She transformed climate change from a green obsession into a national economic security issue. Harris de-ideologised the issue, a remarkable feat. It left Trump spluttering about acres of solar panels.

Round 6: January 6 and the “stolen” election: 9-7. Trump condemned the police for shooting Ashley Babbitt and then tried to move it to the Black Lives Matter riots and blame Nancy Pelosi. Harris had a much better story to tell about January 6. Trump will only sound unhinged whenever he reverts to the stolen election riff. “He was fired by 81 million people,” Harris said. That was a great Trumpian line.

Round 7: Foreign policy: 9-8. He quoted Victor Orban in his defence (and by implication Vladimir Putin). No one else. Harris said world leaders told her Trump was “a disgrace”. That stung. “Putin would be in Kyiv if you (Trump) were president … He would eat you for lunch … You exchanged love letters with Kim Jong-un.” These stung, too. Trump went ­nuclear and sounded disconcerting. Harris even scored points on Afghanistan and Trump’s appeasement of the Taliban.

Round 8: Race: 8-8. To his credit, Trump tried to de-racialise the question about Harris’s race. She initially accused him of a familial racism, which she then parleyed into a call for unity. He ended up defending the Central Park Five case. From 1989. Really?

Donald Trump following the second presidential debate in Philadelphia. Picture: Getty Images

Round 9: Closing statements: 9-8. Trump was Trump. Harris was scripted but with clarity.

Round 10: Ring generalship: 10-8. Trump was tired and grumpy and wanted Biden back. Harris was lively and the rehearsals/cramming worked. Her insistence that “I am not Biden but I’m certainly not Trump” landed well. Trump lacked a memorable line across the 90 minutes. Harris spoke to us; Trump spoke to ­himself. We didn’t know she could do this; we did know Trump does little else.

Overall: Harris 91; Trump 79.

If this debate did not get her elected, it certainly didn’t preclude her doing so. That counts as a big win for Harris – with no second debate for Trump to recover. She chided and mocked him, mostly effectively. She tabulated all the Republicans that have disowned him. Trump’s comeback was good: “I fired them!” He could have gone after her high staff turnover (she is, by all accounts, awful to work for) but didn’t.

And Harris did this without the need for a support person. She is more able than Democrats had feared. They need to hide her less.

But – and there are some big buts to factor in – Harris sounded like a competent dean speaking to amenable academics.

Trump, on the other hand, still has the knack of sounding like an ordinary Joe. He thinks and speaks like my Texan brother-in-law – a swing voter who worked in construction until the GFC forced him into selling funeral plans. He recovered under Trump and now installs wine cellars.

What sounds like rambling to professors is heard as streetwise common sense by him. Americans are not a search committee appointing a vice chancellor. Harris would win that hands down (and it would pay her more in Australia). Instead, they constitute a raucous republic who speak street and campus and everything in between. Trump remains a better illustration of that diversity, ironically, than his opponent.

Finally, the Democrats could hardly contrive a more Harris-friendly Grand Inquisitor in the American Broadcasting Company. Trump was interrupted for ABC fact checking, Harris never was. Trump was pressed, Harris was accommodated. And they may not have even realised they were doing it. It was 3 on 1 in that ring. But it remains all to play for.