One thing that both sides agreed upon in the run-up to Tuesday night’s debate between Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump was that this was going to be an opportunity for both candidates to shape perceptions of Harris, who remains less well-defined than Trump.
At the end of the 90-minute debate, Harris had effectively presented a positive, confident and forward-looking message. Trump, meanwhile, struggled to make a coherent and comprehensive case against her.
Trump’s main objective Tuesday night was to link Harris closely to the Biden administration, show her to be unprepared and unserious, and undermine her credibility with multiple examples of her flip-flops on policy positions.
Instead, Trump spent most of the debate on defense, unable to make a consistent or compelling case on any of those objectives,
In fact, it wasn’t until 10:24 p.m., a full 84 minutes into the debate, that Trump finally uttered the phrase “She is Biden.” And it wasn’t until his closing argument that he made an even more concise and effective retort to Harris’ plans and priorities on policies like
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