Harris-Trump debate: What each candidate needs to do

Vice President Harris and former President Trump are preparing for one of the biggest moments in this year’s election campaign — their first, and perhaps only, TV debate.

The clash will take place Tuesday in Philadelphia, hosted by ABC News and moderated by David Muir and Linsey Davis.

The debate could be pivotal in a race that remains extremely close. 

In the polling averages maintained by The Hill and Decision Desk HQ (DDHQ), Harris is leading by almost 4 points. But the polling margins in the seven battleground states that are likely to decide the election are much tighter.

DDHQ estimates Harris has a 55 percent chance of prevailing in November.

The last presidential debate between Trump and President Biden on June 27 led to Biden’s exit from the race. While this debate is unlikely to have such dramatic repercussions, the stakes could hardly be higher.

Here are three key objectives for both candidates.

Vice President Harris

Avoid big gaffes

Harris enters the debate with the wind at her back.

She has enjoyed an unusually long honeymoon period since Biden dropped out. 

She has risen in the polls amid a wave of Democratic enthusiasm, been celebrated at a successful convention and has seen her campaign war chest swell.

On Friday, her campaign and its affiliates announced they raised $361 million in August and had $404 million cash on hand as they move toward Election Day. The cash on hand figure was more than $100 million higher than Trump’s $295 million.

For Harris, the top objective for the debate is to avoid any moment that would put an abrupt end to her momentum — a gaffe, a misstatement or a clash with Trump that works to her disadvantage.

Such moments are inherently difficult to predict. In the past, unusual aspects of debates have become significant — such as then-President George H.W. Bush impatiently looking at this watch while debating Bill Clinton in 1992 or then-Vice President Al Gore sighing repeatedly while debating George W. Bush eight years later.

Harris doesn’t have to shine especially brightly. Her recent CNN interview, her first since becoming the nominee, was neither great nor terrible. 

If the debate simply passes without major incident, that will be one goal accomplished for Harris.

Win the middle

The election is likely to be decided by a few voters in the center. Harris has already shifted position on some topics in an attempt to win them over.

The most prominent example is fracking, which she wanted to ban during her 2020 primary campaign. She no longer supports a ban. 

She has also shifted away from her backing of “Medicare for All.” During the 2020 primary, she indicated she wanted to decriminalize unauthorized border crossings, but she now says there must be “consequences.”

All of these are efforts to neutralize attacks from Trump and his allies that try to cast Harris as “radical” or, in the former president’s new nickname for her, “Comrade Kamala.”

But immigration, in particular, remains a vulnerability for Harris. It’s one of the administration’s worst issues in polls, and she was closely associated with it during the early years of the Biden presidency. Her answers there will receive particular scrutiny.

Harris also needs to ease doubts about her authenticity — a concern that has been heightened by her recent changes in position.

Push back on Trump claims

Biden’s halting performance in the June debate spurred new levels of concern over his cognitive abilities.

But it had another significant, if less dramatic, impact — it allowed Trump to make his case almost unhindered.

Harris, a former prosecutor more than two decades younger than Biden, can be expected to be much stronger in this regard.

She does have one hurdle to overcome. A request from her team to have the microphone of the nonspeaking candidate left open was ultimately rebuffed. Her mic will be muted when Trump is speaking, and vice versa.

But even if that limits Harris’s ability to interject directly, she will want to go on offense against Trump, putting him under far more pressure than Biden managed to do.

Former President Trump

Avoid boorishness with Harris 

The former president has real problems with female voters. 

Two recent polls, from ABC News and Reuters, have shown him lagging Harris by 13 points among women — a much larger gap than the advantage he enjoys among men.

On Tuesday, Trump will be debating someone vying to be the first female president.

That raises big dangers for the former president if he is perceived as boorish toward Harris when they share the stage.

Trump has already sought to belittle Harris’s intelligence and has claimed, falsely, that she only adopted a Black identity recently. On social media, he has shared crude sexual innuendos about the vice president.

Trump’s propensity to say insensitive things about women extends way beyond Harris, of course. The “Access Hollywood” tape almost capsized his 2016 campaign. On Friday, he caused a new furor while denying past allegations of sexual assault when he said of one accuser, “She would not have been the chosen one.”

In one of his debates against Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton in 2016, Trump’s behavior, stalking the stage closely behind the former secretary of State, was controversial — but obviously didn’t prevent him from winning the election.

He might have less margin of error against Harris.

Provide a measure of coherence and detail

Trump’s communication style is never going to change — for good or for bad.

Supporters enjoy his willingness to speak in an inflammatory and sloganeering way; detractors dislike the exact same traits.

But in such a close election, swing voters will want to know what Trump plans to do in a second term.

The danger is that Trump can flounder when pressed, even politely, over specifics.

Last week, he was asked what he would do to ease child care costs during an appearance at the Economic Club of New York.

His answer was so bizarre and meandering that it was seized upon with glee by Democrats.

Trump being Trump, no one is anticipating he will go into granular detail Tuesday.

But anything like the “child care moment” could seriously hurt him.

Look to the future rather than the past

Trump rarely lets a public appearance go by without reitigating many of his grievances.

The complaints normally cover a predictable gamut — the 2020 election, the legal cases against him and the media’s coverage of him. Even eight years on from the 2016 election, Hillary Clinton’s email server or the allegations of Russian collusion also often earn a mention.

This is yet another Trump habit that is cheered on by the Make America Great Again base. But even many Republicans worry it doesn’t help at all in winning over new supporters.

Some persuasive template of what Trump will do to improve voters’ lives would be welcomed by many of his party colleagues — especially those who have their own close elections to fight this November.