The upcoming debate is a crucial test for Harris

Carl P. Leubsdorf, Tribune News Service

Like Joe Biden last June, Democratic nominee Kamala Harris is the candidate with the most at stake when the two general election contenders face off next week for the first time in the 2024 presidential race. Unlike Biden, Harris can emerge victorious — but only if she keeps a cool head and stays focused in their Sept. 10 face-off in the face of the inevitable rants, distortions and distractions from her rival, Donald Trump. Harris and Trump are scheduled to meet on ABC, just 75 days after Biden’s raspy and semi-coherent performance dashed his strategists’ hopes that the debate would boost his reelection bid and close in on Trump’s small but persistent lead. Instead, his performance so damaged his prospects that it sparked a post-debate panic among Democrats that forced the 81-year-old president to abandon his re-election bid, paving the way for his 59-year-old vice president to take his place at the top of the party ticket.

She has done so in such assured and dramatic fashion that, in just over a month, she is narrowly ahead of Trump in both national polls and in enough swing states to have a reasonable chance of winning. But she remains a lesser-known figure than the former president, who tops the Republican ticket for the third consecutive year. Anecdotes from interviews and some focus groups suggest that some potential Harris supporters are hesitant to back her until they know more about what she would do as president. In some ways, the vice president’s situation is similar to those in the past that have involved promising candidates who many voters were unsure about before their first debates against better-known opponents — notably John F. Kennedy, Ronald Reagan and Barack Obama.

When Kennedy faced Richard Nixon in the first televised presidential debate in 1960, the 43-year-old senator from Massachusetts was less well known than his Republican rival, who had made his name during his eight years as vice president under Dwight Eisenhower. In his opening speech to a meeting that was supposed to be limited to domestic issues, Kennedy referred to the country’s Cold War rivalry with the Soviet Union, cited statistics on the U.S.’s lag in training engineers and scientists, and concluded with his campaign slogan: “It’s time for America to get moving again.” He seemed more energetic than Nixon, who looked pale from a recent illness and bad makeup, and he struck a tone his rival could never match. Although analysts rated their four meetings as roughly even, that opening speech gave Kennedy the momentum that narrowly propelled him to the presidency.

In 1980, Reagan and President Jimmy Carter held their only debate, a week before the election. Carter had always been slightly ahead in the polls, but the interviews many of us conducted with voters that year suggested that the former California governor was gaining popularity among the 1976 president’s voters. Still, it was up to Reagan to counter the Carter campaign’s claims that his hard-line views could lead to war. He did so with humorous retorts and an explosive closing line in which he asked voters to ask themselves, “Are you better off than you were four years ago?”

Voters responded with a resounding “no.” In the final week, Reagan caught up to Carter’s lead, eventually winning by 10 points. In 2008, Obama, though a relatively new figure on the national stage, was the favorite as outgoing Republican incumbent George W. Bush struggled after two terms in office with an unsuccessful war in Iraq and a domestic financial crisis. But the 47-year-old Democrat had been a senator for less than four years, and his prospects seemed shaky when his Republican rival, Sen. John McCain of Arizona, took the lead after the party conventions. But Obama seemed more confident in his handling of the economic crisis, and his strong performance in the first debate gave him the lead he was expected to retain. In all three cases, the lesser-known candidate from the non-incumbent party won. In contrast, a weak first debate doomed Democratic challenger Michael Dukakis’ chances against Vice President George Bush in 1988.

Harris’ situation is different because she is the incumbent party’s lesser-known candidate. But because Trump has been such a dominant political figure in recent years, the campaign is as much about him as it is about her. She must convince voters that she will be a steady hand at the nation’s helm and remind them why they dumped Trump after just four years. In Trump, she faces a seasoned debater. The former president’s June face-off with Biden was his sixth general election debate in the past three campaigns, and he participated in a dozen GOP encounters in 2016, though he avoided his Republican rivals in the primaries that year.

Although this will be her first general election presidential debate, Harris is no novice. Debates played a major role in her two runs for California attorney general, and she attracted attention when she challenged Biden in a 2020 Democratic primary debate. She had a strong performance in the 2020 vice presidential debate with incumbent Republican Mike Pence. In a possible preview of how she might respond to Trump, she at one point interrupted Pence by saying, “Mr. Vice President, I’m speaking.” The way she handles Trump – and the resulting impression it makes on the small number of undecided voters – will likely go a long way in determining whether Harris can prevent the former president’s return to the Oval Office.