The Memo: Harris and Trump get their biggest chance to reshape White House race

Vice President Harris and former President Trump each has their best chance to reshape the race for the White House when they meet for their first, and perhaps only, debate Tuesday in Philadelphia.

The debate comes amid some signs that the honeymoon period Harris has enjoyed since wrapping up the Democratic nomination may be coming to an end.

A New York Times/Siena College poll released Sunday showed Trump leading among likely voters nationwide by 1 point. It offered a bracing reminder to Democrats, who have been riding a wave of relief and excitement for much of Harris’s candidacy, that the election remains extremely tight.

On Monday, a Pew Research Center poll showed the race precisely tied among registered voters, with 49 percent apiece supporting Harris and Trump.

In the national polling average maintained by The Hill and Decision Desk HQ (DDHQ), Harris is leading by just more than 3 points.

Among the seven battleground states that will decide the election’s outcome, the margins are much tighter. Two of those states, Arizona and Georgia, are precisely tied, while in only one battleground state does either candidate have a lead greater than 2 points — Wisconsin, where Harris is up by 2.8 points.

The received wisdom about the debate is that the candidates must do their utmost to avoid any significant error.

There is some obvious truth to that, given how often in the past it has been mistakes rather than stellar performances that have proven most memorable on the debate stage. 

The prime example is President Biden’s disastrous showing in his June 27 clash with Trump in Atlanta — a debacle that set off the chain of events that resulted in Harris becoming the Democratic nominee.

But there may also be room for the candidates to go on offense Tuesday.

That’s particularly true of Harris, who looks to have more room than Trump to win voters over with an affirmative case for her candidacy.

In the New York Times/Siena College poll, 28 percent of likely voters said they needed to know more about Harris. The number was roughly three times larger than the 9 percent who said the same thing about Trump.

At a minimum, those figures suggest there is a curiosity about Harris that simply does not exist for Trump, who has been the central figure in American politics since he launched his first bid for the White House back in 2015.

But there are also clear vulnerabilities for the vice president — potential weaknesses that the debate will either ease or exacerbate.

The Pew poll, for instance, showed Trump holding a 10-point advantage when voters were asked which candidate they trusted to “make good decisions about economic policy.” Similarly, Trump had a 7-point edge in terms of voter confidence about making “wise decisions about immigration policy.”

Those figures mirror Biden’s weakness on both topics — and how closely Harris is tied to him as his deputy. 

She is considered to be especially vulnerable on immigration because of the prominent role she played during the early years of the Biden administration in seeking to address the root causes of migration from Central America.

The broader question for Harris is how to explain her propensity to change her policy positions. 

She has shifted toward the center on fracking, health care and the criminalization of border crossings. In the sole major TV interview she has done since becoming the Democratic nominee, with CNN, Harris insisted her “values have not changed.” 

But in the adversarial setting of a debate stage, she may be put under more pressure than she was by her CNN interviewer, Dana Bash.

Harris has the opportunity to score points, as well as simply ease doubts. The Pew poll indicted abortion is a politically strong issue for her, with voters favoring her by 11 points over Trump to “make good decisions about abortion policy.”

Just as importantly, Harris, a former prosecutor almost 20 years younger than Trump, can be expected to perform far more strongly on the debate stage than Biden managed to do in the June 27 clash.

In an interview with “The Rickey Smiley Morning Show,” broadcast Monday, Harris said there was “no floor” for Trump. She also said she intends “to point out [that] he tends to fight for himself, not for the American people.”

From Trump’s perspective, he is almost certainly going to come under pressure about his unfounded claims of widespread fraud in the 2020 election, as well as threats he has been issuing about this year’s contest.

In a social media post Saturday, Trump suggested anyone who “CHEATED” in this year’s election could be prosecuted and given “long term prison sentences.” Trump’s precise meaning was unclear, as is often the case, but many Americans will discern a whiff of authoritarianism in the broad threat.

Still, Trump has been hitting Harris hard on the campaign trail. There are more moderate Republicans who worry any debate attacks on Harris’s intelligence or personality could backfire with swing voters.

Trump aides suggest he may focus on Harris’s record.

In an emailed statement, Trump senior adviser Jason Miller said, “Harris has to explain both the damage she’s done to our economy as the sitting Vice President, as well as answer why she hasn’t implemented any of these new plans during the last 3 1/2 years.”

Miller, who also accused Harris’s campaign aides of keeping her away from the media, added, “The one thing we do know, however, is that Kamala Harris’ values have not changed, and we will be educating the American public as to what that means policy-wise, in great detail.” 

In a race that is so tight as this year’s, any moment of Tuesday’s debate could matter — and resonate all the way to Election Day.

The Memo is a reported column by Niall Stanage.