Former President Donald Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris met on stage in Philadelphia on Tuesday in a debate that kicked off the final stretch of an unusually short and tumultuous presidential campaign.
The debate hosted by ABC News was the first and perhaps the only meeting of the two candidates before Election Day, likely the single biggest opportunity for each of them to change the minds of undecided and unexcited voters in a race that was essentially tied going into Tuesday night, according to polls of the half-dozen or so swing states that likely will decide the outcome.
Neither candidate strayed from the rhetoric that has defined their campaigns, with Trump painting a grim picture of the United States, which he called “a nation in decline” that only he could save. Meanwhile, Harris urged voters to “turn the page” and support her as the vanguard of “a new generation of leadership for our country,” despite being part of the current administration.
“I think you’ve heard tonight two very different visions for our country,” Harris said in her closing statement. “One that is focused on the future and the other that is focused on the past.”
Trump, who won a coin toss to have the last word, closed the debate by citing Harris’ proposals to build a stronger economy and asking, “Why hasn’t she done it? She’s been there for 3 1/2 years.”
Here are three takeaways from Tuesday’s debate:
1. The party faithful liked what they heard, but will it sway undecided voters?
Near the scheduled end of the debate, which ran longer than the planned 90 minutes, Trump’s campaign managers released a statement declaring that he had “delivered a masterful debate performance tonight.” When the debate finally ended, the Harris campaign chair said in a statement that the Democrat “commanded the stage” while Trump “was totally incoherent.”
Party leaders in Washington state said their respective candidates had done what they needed to do. Shasti Conrad, chair of the Washington State Democratic Party, said in a statement that Harris’ vision for the future contrasted with Trump, who “offered a steady stream of grievances, baseless personal attacks, and so so many lies.”
“Tonight, every American who tuned in to the presidential debate saw the passion and fidelity Vice President Harris has for our great nation compared with Trump’s sneering disdain for America’s workers, senior citizens, women and young people,” Conrad said. “Every American who believes in decency, the rule of law, and an America that builds all of us up together must get to work electing Kamala Harris as our next president.”
But the election will ultimately be decided by a narrow slice of the electorate in a handful of states that could swing the outcome of the electoral college. Jim Walsh, chair of the Washington State Republican Party, said that while issues like immigration, foreign policy and the economy may sway some undecided voters, the debate didn’t fundamentally change the state of the race.
“I think Trump was Trump. You either like his style or you don’t,” Walsh said. “I think Trump is going to be re-elected. That doesn’t mean everybody loves him — everybody does not love him — but I think there are just too many mistakes that the current administration has made.”
Despite Harris’ attempts to distance herself from the Biden administration and cast herself as the candidate of change, Walsh said, voters understand that she has been in office for nearly four years.
Harris cited endorsements she has received from prominent Republicans, including former Rep. Liz Cheney, in an appeal to the political center.
“I don’t see how Trump moved the needle toward appealing to moderates at all, and I see how Kamala did a great deal,” said James Long, a political science professor at the University of Washington.
2. Harris goaded Trump into debating on her terms — and he often took the bait
Throughout the debate, Trump sought to put a spotlight on issues like immigration and the economy that polls show to be a weakness for Harris, but the Democrat often succeeded in turning the conversation toward issues that seemingly struck a nerve with her opponent.
Cornell Clayton, a professor of political science at Washington State University, said he expected the Harris campaign team would be happy with how the debate went while Trump’s team would be less satisfied.
“She clearly had a strategy going in,” Clayton said, “to prosecute Donald Trump and bait him to defend his record. At almost every turn, he took the bait.”
Early in the debate, Harris turned to the camera and did something she admitted was “really unusual,” inviting the audience to attend a Trump rally and see for themselves what the Republican talks about. After she said people leave Trump’s rallies early “out of exhaustion and boredom” over his often rambling speeches, the former president pivoted from a question about immigration — a topic he is normally eager to discuss — to defend his campaign events.
“People don’t leave my rallies,” Trump said. “We have the biggest rallies, the most incredible rallies in the history of politics.”
At multiple points in the evening, Trump also returned to the 2020 election, which he continues to insist that he won despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary.
“I got almost 75 million votes, the most votes any sitting president has ever gotten,” Trump said. “I was told if I got 63 (million), which is what I got in 2016, you can’t be beaten.”
Harris was eager to stay on that topic, pointing out that the roughly 74.2 million votes Trump received in 2020 was far short of the approximately 81.2 million votes for President Joe Biden.
“Donald Trump was fired by 81 million people, so let’s be clear about that, and clearly he is having a very difficult time processing that,” Harris said. “But we cannot afford to have a president of the United States who attempts, as he did in the past, to upend the will of the voters in a free and fair election.”
3. Both candidates were short on specifics and stretched the truth, but Trump drew more fact-checking
Neither candidate offered many details when asked by the moderators, ABC anchors David Muir and Linsey Davis, what they would do as president. When Harris was questioned on how she would end the war Israel and Hamas that has killed more than 40,000 Palestinians in Gaza, the vice president said only that she “would work around the clock” to help negotiate a cease-fire and the release of hostages who remain in Gaza 11 months after Hamas attacked Israel, killing some 1,200 people.
Trump, meanwhile, said only that the Hamas attack and the ensuing war never would have happened on his watch, also insisting that Russia wouldn’t have invaded Ukraine, without explaining how he would end either war. Asked about his shifting positions on the Affordable Care Act and whether he had a better plan for the nation’s health care, Trump said, “I have concepts of a plan.”
On several occasions, Trump referred to rumors, conspiracy theories and proven falsehoods that the moderators were prepared to fact check. When the former president brought up the claim that Haitian immigrants in Springfield, Ohio, have been killing and eating residents’ pets, Muir read a statement from the city manager saying no such thing had happened.
Harris stretched the truth at times, including when she accused Trump of opposing in-vitro fertilization and being closely involved in the set of conservative policy proposals known as Project 2025, but Trump’s denials were often drowned out by his unclear answers on other points.
