There is one way Harris could show that she is serious about debating Trump again

“I would like to have another debate,” she told reporters on Sunday evening at Andrews Air Force Base. At a fundraiser the same day, the vice president was more explicit.

“By the way, I think we should have another debate,” Harris said, adding that she had accepted an invitation from CNN and “my opponent seems to be looking for an excuse to avoid it when he really should accept it.”

“I will gladly attend a second presidential debate on October 23,” she wrote in response to a social media post by CNN’s Kaitlan Collins on Saturday, in which she suggested the Democratic nominee had accepted the network’s invitation. “I hope @realDonaldTrump will be there.”

“The American people deserve another opportunity to watch the debate between Vice President Kamala Harris and Donald Trump before they cast their votes,” Jen O’Malley Dillon, chair of the Harris campaign, said in a statement.

Trump has now indicated more than once that there will be no second debate with Harris, which would actually be his third in the election campaign. “The problem with another debate is that it’s just too late, the voting has already started,” he said recently. “Now she wants to do a debate with CNN just before the election because she is suffering a heavy defeat.”

Whenever Trump hesitated to debate Harris or tried to negotiate the rules of the game with her campaign team, Democrats and much of the media cried foul – that is, they called him a chicken and accused him of avoiding debates.

“Whatever happened to ‘anytime, anywhere’?” Harris asked in a viral post in response to the Bulwark Sam Stein reported on July 25 that “Trump camp says he’s withdrawing from debates.” That came four days after Harris jumped to the top of the ticket, and the Trump camp actually said at a national convention that had not yet taken place, “Debate details cannot be finalized until Democrats formally choose their nominee.”

Trump and Harris debated on ABC News earlier this month. CBS News is hosting a vice presidential debate on October 1 between their respective running mate candidates, Senator JD Vance (R-OH) and Governor Tim Walz (D-MN).

The former president adopted the “anytime, any place” policy when President Joe Biden was still his opponent. Trump stuck with it when Biden challenged him to debates where conditions seemed to favor the incumbent. Their debate on June 27 knocked Biden out of the race, and Harris became the Democratic standard-bearer in the first place.

Trump’s Republican opponents in the primaries, most notably former New Jersey Governor Chris Christie of “Donald Duck” fame, similarly tried to taunt him and get him to join them on the debate stage. But Trump was well ahead of them in the polls, and Christie himself did not even make it into the New Hampshire primary.

The general election has been tighter since Harris rose to the top of the Democratic ticket, and the impact of a second debate with Trump is uncertain. Harris’ campaign team clearly liked what it saw in their first encounter, when she was a much more disciplined messenger than Trump, and post-debate coverage was generally positive.

At the same time, neither the focus groups conducted immediately after the debate nor the polls that followed show a clear upswing for Harris, even though most academic polls see her as the winner of this showdown. The latest New York Times– Siena College swing state polls showed Trump ahead in the Sunbelt, and it was believed that Harris had regained her weight since becoming the Democratic nominee.

The Harris team may not believe Trump’s claim that demanding a rematch would be an admission of defeat. Trump seemed willing to debate Biden again after June 27, before Harris replaced him. But the desire for another debate suggests that even if Democrats think they have Trump in a tight spot, they know they haven’t scored a knockout yet.

Harris has never embraced the “anytime, anywhere” policy in public appearances, let alone debates. She has not participated in debates on either Fox News or NBC News.

Both candidates are clearly more interested in generating negative headlines for their opponent than in taking a principled stance for an open debate. With the race appearing to be close, both are particularly interested in the ground rules of debate.

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If Harris really wants to debate Trump, she could agree to meet with him on Fox News. If he refused to show up, Harris’ debate prowess would be more justified. It would also increase the chances that a second Harris-Trump debate actually happens.

There’s an old saying about what looks, swims and quacks like a duck, and it applies to a popular metaphor for avoiding debate.