The tasks facing Harris and Trump tonight

Previewing the Philly debate.

Considering his dismal favorability rating,¹ I wouldn’t exactly say Republicans would be better off if they pulled a Biden-style swap and made JD Vance their presidential nominee instead of Donald Trump. But, perhaps, the GOP would be better off if the person who runs JD Vance’s X account was promoted to oversee messaging for the entire Trump ticket.

I’ve been watching Vance’s X feed closely the last few days, and I think it provides a window into the type of campaign Trump could be running.

Nearly every tweet Vance fires off includes the same two words — “Kamala Harris” — a level of focus that Trump’s own social media posts very much lack. In recent days, Vance has hit Harris on immigration, the Afghanistan withdrawal, and the economy — all among the Trump campaign’s most potent lines of attack against the vice president. You won’t find messages about voter fraud or the 2020 election on Vance’s feed²; instead, on Monday, he unleashed an eight-part thread (55 paragraphs in all) picking apart the new policy section on Harris’ website, piece by piece. It was quite possibly a longer discussion of policy than Trump has ever attempted in any of his three presidential campaigns.

Meanwhile, over on Truth Social in the last few days, Trump has threatened to jail his political rivals, called for an investigation of false allegations of voter fraud in Pennsylvania, hawked Hulk Hogan’s new beer and his golf course in Scotland, attacked Harris’ height and her visit to an “ultra Left Wing, Trump Hating, spice shop,” and brought up obvious political losers for him like January 6th, the years-old Russia investigation, and the indictments against him.

He’ll sometimes mention immigration or inflation as well, but only in between posting needless distractions that can often spur entire negative news cycles. In a nutshell: messages like the ones Vance is pushing out are why Trump might win this election. Messages like the ones Trump is pushing out are why Trump might lose this election.

Which brings us to today’s big question: which of those messages will Trump lean into tonight, as he faces Kamala Harris for their first debate in Philadelphia?

After Trump’s last turn on the debate stage, of course, the headlines were not about Trump at all, but instead about Joe Biden’s disastrous performance. But, the truth is, while Biden bombed, Trump stayed impressively on-message. As I wrote the next morning:

During nearly every answer, [Biden] would spit out reams of facts and figures, delving into the minutiae of various policies. But he failed to prosecute a broader case about why he deserved to be elected president a second time.

Trump, on the other hand, returned to the same fundamental points in every answer: The U.S. under Biden is failing. The economy is struggling. The border is out of control. It was better when I was president and it will be better if I’m back. He kept it simple, and he emphasized that message again and again.

In fact, during that entire period of the campaign (and directly after the debate, when he wisely stayed out of the news cycle and let Biden implode for himself), Trump remained unusually disciplined.

But that has gone out the window since Harris became his opponent, leading Trump to adopt such messages as questioning her racial identity and pining (as recently as a Truth Social post on Monday) for Biden’s return.

His attacks have been all over the place since Harris replaced Biden; tonight is his opportunity to focus in on the issues she struggles on and coax back moderate and independent voters who have been unhappy with the Biden presidency. Conversely, he could do what his aides most fear, according to Axios, and slip into “racist or misogynistic asides”— which would represent a further setback in his attempt to reclaim his erstwhile polling advantage.³

In his six general election debates across three presidential cycles, Trump has never faced anyone born more recently than the 1940s, the decade he was also born. Unlike his debate with Biden, when he could simply sit back and allow the president to stumble, the onus is now on Trump to show that he is not the aging candidate who has lost a step, and to offer a coherent — not cluttered — case against Harris, something he has struggled to do thus far.

The Preamble of the Constitution inscribed on the side of the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia, where tonight’s debate will be held. (Photo by Wally Gobetz)

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Harris, meanwhile, faces several tall tasks of her own.

As I wrote yesterday, polls show that a significant chunk of Americans still say they need to know more about Harris before making up their minds; only seven weeks into her campaign, she remains undefined in the eyes of many voters.

One key area to watch will be how Harris does or doesn’t distance herself from her former running mate Joe Biden. Either path is full of pitfalls. Embracing Biden allows Trump to attack her on the administration’s record on the economy, immigration, and other issues on which Biden remains deeply unpopular with voters. But distancing herself — as some friendly pundits, like Jonathan Chait, have recently urged her to do — would spark the obvious rejoinder: “So why didn’t you do anything about it as his vice president?”

Ahead of the debate, Trump’s strategy of tying Harris to Biden is already clear: “Kamala Harris Is Inseparable From Joe Biden,” a statement from his campaign announced this morning, adding that: “Kamala Harris owns Joe Biden’s failed record on the economy and the border.” The campaign also released a new web video describing Harris as a “central member” of Biden’s administration and noting that she failed to achieve any of her stated “Day One” priorities in three years as vice president.

Along those lines, Harris’ pre-debate messaging suggests that she will attempt to seize the “change” mantle in tonight’s face-off — again, something tricky to pull off as the sitting vice president.

Harris, who hasn’t participated in a debate in almost four years, will also have to maintain her composure amid potential interruptions from Trump, whom she will be meeting for the first time tonight. Harris’ team fought hard for the candidates’ microphones to remain hot even when it is not their turn to speak, hoping that Trump’s interruptions would be heard by the TV audience, not just by Harris.

However, the debate rules will remain the same as for the Biden/Trump face-off — muted microphones and all — potentially depriving Harris of a moment a la her 2020 signature, “Mr. Vice President, I’m speaking.”

Unlike Trump, by now a debate veteran, and his previous opponents Joe Biden and Hillary Clinton, Harris has never been on a stage this large — a strong night could cement her current (slight) polling lead, but she only has to look across the West Wing for evidence that one false step could send the rest of her campaign into a doom spiral.

1. Of the four people on the national tickets this year, Vance is the least popular. Per FiveThirtyEight averages, Vance’s favorability rating is at -10.4%, Trump’s is at -9.3%, Harris’ is at -0.6%, and Tim Walz’s is at +4.4%.

2. You will, however, find other false claims (even if they are still hew closer to the Trump campaign’s message). Yesterday, Vance alleged that “reports now show that people have had their pets abducted and eaten” by Haitian immigrants, something there is zero evidence of.

3. Yes, Trump has succeeded in the past even after insulting his opponents — but I would argue that (in general elections, not primaries) Trump has won in spite of his insults, not because of them. Think of all the voters who say they support Trump, but wish he was a tad more restrained on social media. Also remember that polls have shown Trump has lost every general election debate he’s participated in — that is, until his June match-up with Biden.