Friday, Sept. 6, 2024 | 2 a.m.
Like President Joe Biden in June, Democratic nominee Kamala Harris is the candidate with essentially the most at stake when the 2 basic election nominees seem collectively subsequent week for the primary time within the 2024 presidential race.
Not like Biden, Harris can come out forward — however provided that she retains her cool and her focus towards the onslaught of rival Donald Trump’s inevitable diatribes, distortions and distractions of their Tuesday encounter.
Harris and Trump are scheduled to satisfy on ABC simply 75 days after Biden’s raspy-voice, semi-coherent efficiency undermined his strategists’ hopes that the controversy would jump-start his reelection candidacy and overcome Trump’s small however persistent lead.
As a substitute, his efficiency so diminished his prospects that it set off a post-debate Democratic panic that compelled the 81-year-old president to desert his reelection bid, opening the way in which for his 59-year-old vice chairman to imagine his place on the head of the celebration’s ticket.
She has carried out so in such a sure-footed and dramatic method that, in simply greater than a month, she has pulled barely forward of Trump in each nationwide polls and sufficient swing states to have an inexpensive likelihood of victory.
However she stays a lesser-known determine than the previous president, who’s main the Republican ticket for the third straight election. Anecdotal proof from interviews and a few focus teams point out that some potential Harris supporters are hesitant to again her till they know extra about what she would do as president.
In a way, the vice chairman’s state of affairs resembles these confronted previously by promising candidates about whom many citizens had been unsure earlier than their preliminary debates towards higher recognized foes — notably John F. Kennedy, Ronald Reagan and Barack Obama.
When Kennedy met Richard Nixon within the first-ever televised presidential debate in 1960, the 43-year-old Massachusetts senator was much less well-known than his Republican rival, who had turn into a well-known determine throughout his eight years as Dwight Eisenhower’s vice chairman.
In his opening assertion of an encounter that was imagined to be confined to home points, Kennedy invoked the nation’s Chilly Warfare competitors towards the Soviet Union, cited statistics on how the U.S. was lagging in producing engineers and scientists and concluded together with his marketing campaign theme that “It’s time America began shifting once more.”
He appeared extra vigorous than Nixon, who appeared pale after a current bout of sickness and a poor make-up job, and he set a tone his rival by no means matched. Although analysts rated their 4 encounters as roughly even, that opening assertion gave Kennedy the momentum that narrowly propelled him into the presidency.
In 1980, Reagan and President Jimmy Carter held their solely debate per week earlier than the election. Carter had persistently held a slender lead within the polls, although the interviews many people carried out with voters that 12 months indicated the previous California governor was gaining among the many president’s 1976 voters.
Nonetheless, the burden was on Reagan to counter the contentions from the Carter marketing campaign that his hardline views would possibly result in conflict. He succeeded with humorous rejoinders and a dynamite closing line wherein he urged voters to ask themselves, “Are you higher off than you had been 4 years in the past?”
Voters answered that with a powerful “No.” Within the closing week, Reagan overcame Carter’s lead and wound up successful by 10 factors.
In 2008, Obama, although a comparatively new nationwide determine, was the favourite as retiring two-term Republican incumbent George W. Bush struggled to handle an unsuccessful overseas conflict in Iraq and a home monetary disaster.
However the 47-year-old Democrat had been a senator for lower than 4 years, and his prospects appeared shaky when his Republican rival, Sen. John McCain of Arizona, took the lead after the conventions. However Obama appeared extra surefooted in his strategy to the financial disaster, and his robust first debate efficiency put him forward to remain.
In all three circumstances, the lesser-known candidate from the non-incumbent celebration gained. Against this, a poor first debate killed the 1988 possibilities of Democratic challenger Michael Dukakis towards Vice President George Bush.
Harris’ state of affairs is completely different as a result of she is the lesser-known nominee of the incumbent celebration. However as a result of Trump has been so dominant a political determine lately, the marketing campaign is as a lot about him as about her. She must persuade voters she could be a gradual hand on the nation’s tiller and remind them why they despatched Trump packing after simply 4 years.
In Trump, she is going through an skilled debate performer. The previous president’s June conflict with Biden was his sixth basic election debate over the previous three campaigns, and he participated in a dozen GOP encounters in 2016 although he prevented his Republican main rivals this 12 months.
However although this might be her first basic election presidential debate, Harris isn’t any novice. Debates performed an vital function in her two elections as California’s lawyer basic, and she or he gained consideration in difficult Biden in a 2020 Democratic main debate.
She had a robust efficiency within the 2020 vice presidential debate with incumbent Republican Mike Pence. In a attainable preview of how she would possibly react to Trump, she stopped Pence at one level from interrupting her by declaring, “Mr. Vice President, I’m talking.”
The way in which she handles Trump — and the ensuing impression on the small variety of unsure voters — will seemingly go a good distance towards figuring out if Harris can stop the previous president’s return to the Oval Workplace.
Carl Leubsdorf is a columnist for The Dallas Morning Information.
