PHILADELPHIA — Ever since President Joe Biden ended his reelection campaign, former president Donald Trump has been sour and on the defensive. His new opponent, Vice President Kamala Harris, made clear in their scorching debate here Tuesday night that she will spend the next two months trying to keep him there.
Analysis by Dan Balz
If debates matter, this one should. But the overriding question in such a divided country is whether it will.
The final weeks of the campaign promise to be as contentious as the 90-minute encounter at the National Constitution Center hosted by ABC News, with polls showing no clear leader and a nation hanging nervously on the outcome. If there were doubts about Harris’s ability to weather what will be a brutal stretch, they were at least partially answered with her sharp and steady performance on Tuesday. But given the state of the race, neither candidate can afford missteps or mistakes.
Harris, who was under pressure to define herself more fully to voters who barely know her, did so less by outlining her positions on policies — though she did some of that — and more by being vigorous and unrelenting in attacking Trump. She played prosecutor from start to finish. She called him a threat to the future of the country if he is returned to the Oval Office. She portrayed him as obsessed with himself rather than the people he seeks to serve. She detailed his criminal convictions and the indictments against him. She even needled him about crowd sizes. It was a dominating performance. Trump has not been challenged so directly and so consistently in his political life. No wonder he misses Biden.
