Is Harris changing her plan?

Since the beginning of the Trump era, Pennsylvania has been an early bellwether for national politics.

In 2016, Philadelphia hosted the Democratic National Convention, where protests and discord presaged Hillary Clinton’s ultimate failure to preserve the Obama coalition. Two years later, the party’s special election victory in a Trump-voting western Pennsylvania district was the first sign of its 2018 comeback. Gearing his campaign towards the Rust Belt, Joe Biden began his winning 2020 campaign in Pittsburgh and saw the state ultimately tip him over 270 electoral votes. In 2022, the Pennsylvania Senate race embodied Republicans’ disappointing midterm finish, with a weak, Trump-backed nominee handing Democrats the cycle’s only Senate seat flip.

So the Keystone State, with all the undulation it’s represented the past eight years, was a fitting site for Tuesday’s highly anticipated showdown between former President Donald Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris. For Democrats, the debate demonstrated all the reasons 2024 may resemble the victories of years past: Their nominee turned in a skilled and effective performance, aiming her message towards persuadable voters with laser-like precision, while Republicans saw their candidate careen between grievance and grousing.

But it also contained warning signs for Harris, especially when it comes to the strategic ambiguity she has deployed on the issues.

Going into the matchup, the conventional wisdom among plugged-in politicos had turned slightly but unmistakably against Harris. Nate Silver’s election forecast, the most closely watched among journalists and operatives, found Trump’s chances of winning steadily rising. Allies argued her strategy was “not working.” Opponents bragged that she had “frittered away” her momentum. And on Sunday, the New York Times/Siena poll, considered close to a gold standard for national polls, with particular influence among liberal election junkies, found Trump leading by a point.

Then the candidates took the stage. It’s hard to argue that the 67 million Americans who tuned in (the exact median viewership for Trump’s record seven general election debates over the past eight years) did not see a clear Harris victory; all the instant polls, including CNN and YouGov, found her the winner, a stark contrast to the first Biden-Trump debate in June.

But as important as Harris’ crisp performance — she clearly won on style and presentation, the usual measures of presidential debates — was Trump’s failure to drill down on her weaknesses. Not only was he often incoherent but he repeatedly allowed her to change the subject, especially when the topic was on unfavorable terrain for Democrats.

Harris was able to pivot discussion of the economy, which Americans continue to view negatively, into a broader discussion of competence and temperament by invoking Project 2025 and the Wharton School of Finance, Trump’s alma mater. Asked about immigration, the former president’s strongest issue, she managed to redirect the conversation by invoking his rally sizes and meandering monologues. Pressed on her sudden heel turn on a range of policy positions, she goaded the former president into rants by jabbing at inheritance and previous bankruptcies.

Democrats were particularly heartened by what they saw; several activists and workers I talked to relished the moments in which the vice president seemed to channel her coalition’s deep contempt for the former president, such as when she called him a “disgrace.”

The post-debate polls reflected Harris’ overall success: CNN, for example, found Harris’ win margin (63-37) approaching Trump’s over Biden in June (67-33) — a remarkable fact given the incumbent’s performance was so catastrophic it literally ended his campaign.

But amid the afterglow, other metrics showed red flags for the Democratic campaign. Even as it found Harris the clear winner, CNN’s flash poll found viewers favored Trump on the economy slightly more after the debate than before. Focus groups from the New York Times and Reuters found some undecided voters less sold than broader media coverage would suggest.

Harris’ debate performance created little daylight with President Biden, who remains unpopular, and mentioned only a few concrete economic policies. She again avoided giving a fulsome answer not just to why her positions changed so quickly on a wide range of issues, but where exactly she has landed. This week, CNN’s KFILE reported on a 2019 questionnaire in which the then-senator affirmed her support for publicly funded gender transitions, including surgical care, for federal inmates and immigration detainees. The position is a mainstream one for a modern Democrat, and, notably, in keeping with current interpretation of federal law. But when asked, the Harris campaign refused repeatedly to answer whether their candidate still stands by it.

That tracks with something I experienced at the Democratic National Convention last month: Multiple Harris surrogates, including Transportation Secretary Pete Butttigieg, refused to give a straight yes or no when asked if Harris would still implement the policies of the bipartisan immigration deal if Democrats won unified control of Washington. That Harris has been so careful to avoid firm stances like that, especially when it comes to how she would be different from her boss, has so far been regarded as skillful.

But with voters still hungry for change, Harris’ maneuvers could come back to bite her if voters’ pre-debate perceptions remain locked in. The Times/Siena poll found 61% of respondents wanting “major change” from Biden. 55% believed Harris represented “more of the same,” while 61% felt Trump represented “major change.”

None of which is to say Tuesday’s debate did not matter — the stakes were higher for Harris and she was the clear winner, as even high-ranking Republicans like Lindsey Graham acknowledged. But the partisan fluctuations between despair and jubilation, encapsulated by the “we’re so back/it’s so over” Internet meme, are particularly ill-suited for a historically unpredictable, tight race.

There are signs the Harris campaign recognizes their challenge: Politico reported late Wednesday that it intends to do “more media interviews, including with unconventional outlets.” The Trump campaign, meanwhile, confirmed that it has not yet made a decision on participating in a second debate — its ultimate verdict could have huge implications for the race’s final weeks. Other events on the calendar could present even more churn: The October 1st vice presidential debate, typically a sleepy affair, could have an outsized impact given both nominees’ unusually high profiles.

The bottom line: We’ll see. 54 days until Election Day.

 

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