US President Joe Biden bet that the June presidential debate would turn the race in his favor.
Now Donald Trump may be making a similar calculation by agreeing to debate on ABC next month as his new Democratic opponent enjoys growing momentum in the polls.
Trump clearly doesn’t believe he will suffer the kind of disaster that ended Biden’s campaign, but his decision — and the calling of two more debates on NBC and Fox that Vice President Kamala Harris did not agree to — reveals a truth emerging about the election.
After a busy week for Harris and her new running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, Trump suddenly seems like old news — a new and overwhelming experience for a former president who prides himself on driving the public narrative.
A big test for both candidates
The build-up to the September 10 debate, if it is indeed held, will be intense, and the truncated nature of the new campaign means it could create another historic pivot point on the dwindling path to the White House.
Trump is already playing his idiosyncratic expectations game of attacking the capabilities of his opponent, who could be the first black and Asian woman to hold the US presidency. At a news conference at his Mar-a-Lago resort on Thursday, he compared Kamala Harris unfavorably to Biden, a president who Trump had long argued lacked the mental capacity for the job.
“Actually, she’s not as smart as him. By the way, I don’t think he’s very smart either. I’m not a big fan of his brain,” Trump said.
The matchup also feels like an extreme test for Harris. The vice president has a mixed record in debates — she performed strongly in such events early in her failed 2020 presidential campaign. But in others, she has struggled. And her most awkward moments in office came when she was pressured to explain her positions or answer difficult questions in important interviews.
But Harris is a more talented politician than she was four years ago — and her supporters are eager to see her leverage her skills as a former prosecutor to skewer the former president indicted in four criminal cases.
Harris criticized Trump for his change of heart regarding the ABC debate and said she was happy to have a conversation about a second meeting at a later date. “I’m glad he finally agreed to a debate on September 10th. I’m looking forward to it and I hope he shows up,” she told reporters before flying to Detroit.
Trump is struggling for traction in a transformed race
After Harris turned the campaign upside down in less than three weeks, Trump showed at his press conference that he is still struggling to formulate an effective response.
The former president appears to be mourning the race against Biden, 81, and in denial about the initial success of the energetic new Democratic ticket.
Asked why he wasn’t doing more to campaign and counter Harris’ campaign launch, Trump argued, “I’m leading too much and I’m letting their convention pass.” He insisted that he had not “recalibrated the strategy at all,” while making the same arguments that the US is overwhelmed by open borders and immigrant crime.
But there is a growing feeling that his campaign needs a reboot. Harris managed to reverse an earlier lead the former president had over Biden with the race now tight in the latest poll from CNN.
A new Marquette Law School poll released Thursday morning found Harris leading 52% to Trump’s 48% among registered voters nationwide.
Trump’s problem is not that there are no solid arguments against Harris and his new running mate: millions of Americans suffer from inflation and are haunted by economic insecurity. The world is an increasingly dangerous place as Americans’ enemies unite to challenge Washington’s power. And Harris is closely tied to everything the unpopular Biden administration has done in these areas.
The new Democratic ticket has not offered concrete policies to address such issues, and the vice president has yet to submit to detailed questions from reporters or give a major television interview. And many right-wing Republicans and independents are receptive to Trump’s arguments about the crisis at the southern border, even as arrivals of undocumented migrants have declined since Biden expanded enforcement earlier this year.
But Trump is not making many of these points effectively as he reflects on his personal grievances. His characteristically off-the-rails press conference at one point rambled on about him comparing the size of his crowd and the one mobilized by Martin Luther King Jr.
And the former president also appears to be setting up a predicate to challenge the fairness of the election again if he loses — falsely insisting on Thursday that the Democratic Party’s change of nominees was unconstitutional.
“We have a Constitution. It’s a very important document and we live by it,” Trump said, seemingly oblivious to the irony of such comments coming from a former president who tried to steal the 2020 election and threatened the fabric of U.S. democracy.
In a statement, Harris’ campaign tried to interpret Trump’s ramblings as evidence that he is lost at a time when she is trying to label Trump and his running mate, Senator JD Vance, as “outsiders.”
“Donald Trump took a break to put on his pants and stage a public meltdown press conference,” the campaign said in a statement that included the warning. “He hasn’t campaigned all week. He won’t be heading to any swing states this week. But he sure is mad that Kamala Harris and Tim Walz are drawing big crowds on the battlefields.”
The return of American carnage
Trump’s strategy on Thursday was familiar. He reinserted himself into a news cycle it was losing with a dark, dystopian message. This is “the most dangerous period I have ever seen for our country,” he said, and predicted a Great Depression and World War III if he is not elected.
With her return to the politics of fear and darkness, narratives of American carnage presented a contrast to the lightness and joy that erupted at large Democratic rallies this week after Harris named her running mate and they set out on a joint journey through the swing states that will be decisive in the November elections.
Despite renewed fears of a recession, unemployment is currently at 4.3% and economic growth is solid. No credible economist predicts a return to the 25% unemployment of the 1930s. And although American power is being challenged by dictatorial leaders in Russia, China and North Korea, and wars rage in the Middle East and Ukraine, there are no signs that a third global conflagration is imminent.
The atmosphere of the 2024 campaign has changed at remarkable speed. Three weeks ago Thursday, Republican delegates left their convention in Milwaukee excited about Trump’s chances, with many predicting a landslide election victory after his defiant response to an assassination attempt overwhelmed his campaign.
Now, Trump appears trapped in a moment of political paralysis. But it is unlikely to stay that way. His entire political career, and especially his 2024 campaign, has been a case study in harnessing near-existential threats and using them to gain political advantage. After all, this is a former president who used a photo taken in a Georgia prison to build a primary campaign that crushed his rivals based on the premise that he was being persecuted.
Harris’s achievement so far has been to restore the election to a close contest in a polarized nation.
But despite the adoring crowds this week, the vice president remains untested in the intense heat of a national presidential election. And the Democrats’ path to 270 electoral votes still looks challenging, even if there are signs that the vice president may be bringing some swing states back into play.
Trump aides insisted Thursday that Harris’ early recovery was expected.
“They are celebrating the return of the voters they should have had from the beginning,” an official told reporters. “They know, as we do, that the fundamentals of running have not changed.” The official added: “When you ask voters if they would rather return to the Trump economy or stay in the Biden economy, we win two to one.”
That’s why many Republicans believe their version of reality will soon reassert itself.
“The honeymoon period is going to end,” Trump insisted on Thursday.
But the former president shows little sign that he knows how to make that happen.
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