Undecided voters may have switched to Harris’ column after the debate

After considerable wrangling over the terms of their collaboration, Harris and Trump finally agreed to a debate on the American Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) network. The debate took place in Philadelphia on September 10 and proved to be – predictably – acrimonious. Both Harris and Trump were combative, albeit in very different ways.

Among other things, he repeated a lie spread by his running mate, JD Vance, that Haitian immigrants were stealing, killing, and eating domestic cats and dogs in the city of Springfield, Ohio. It is of course true that many Haitians fleeing widespread unrest and violence in their homeland have sought refuge in the United States, legally or illegally.

Springfield, a city that had experienced significant industrial decline and population loss, benefited from the influx of these immigrants. They proved to be industrious, they were able to reverse the population decline and, polemical claims aside, they did not become wards of the state. And they certainly did not tend to catch and eat domesticated animals.