LAS VEGAS – vice president Kamala Harris on Friday dismissed “pundits” criticizing President Joe Biden’s halting and uneven debate performance, telling a rally in Las Vegas that “this race will not be decided on one night in June.”
Speaking to an energetic crowd, Harris joined Biden’s effort to calm Democratic anxiety by attacking former President Donald Trump, the presumptive Republican nominee. She framed the election as a binary choice “between someone who lies and someone who leads.”
“In a true leader, character is more important than style,” Harris said. “And Donald Trump simply does not have the character to be president of the United States.”
By recognizing the uneven performanceHarris emphasized the substance of Trump’s remarks during the 90-minute debate, including his refusal to condemn protesters who stormed the Capitol on January 6, 2021, as well as its reluctance to emphatically commit to accepting the results of the November elections this year.
“Last night clarified what is at stake in this election,” Harris said.
His event in Las Vegas and his television interviews after the Biden debate were apparent efforts to calm Democratic panic. Hours earlier, in Raleigh, North Carolina, Biden appeared to acknowledge criticism of his performance, saying “I don’t debate as well as I used to.”
Harris spoke for 11 minutes at a Las Vegas community center at an event aimed at Latino voters, a crucial voting bloc in the battleground state of Nevada.
A Biden campaign official followed a New York Times reporter as he interviewed voters and ended the interviews when they came back negative, the newspaper reported. No one from the campaign followed or interfered with an Associated Press reporter’s speech to voters.
Harris said the contrast between Biden and Trump ultimately should be on Biden’s performance in office, not a debate.
“I see Joe Biden when the cameras are on and when the cameras are off,” Harris said. “I’m in the Oval Office negotiating bipartisan deals. I see him in the Situation Room keeping our country safe. On the world stage, I meet with world leaders who often ask for his advice.”
Polls CNN It is 538/Ipsos conducted shortly after the debate found that most debate watchers thought Trump outperformed Biden. But the two men’s favorability ratings remained largely unchanged, as they did in the aftermath of Trump’s conviction.
Harris gave interviews Thursday night to CNN and MSNBC amid immediate panic from Democrats over Biden’s performance, which has fueled long-standing questions about whether the 81-year-old president should leave office.
“It was a slow start. This is obvious to everyone. I’m not going to debate that point,” Harris said in a CNN interview after the debate. “I’m talking about the November pick. I’m talking about one of the most important elections of our collective life.”
Before Harris arrived in Las Vegas, a group of women waiting to get in agreed that Biden’s debate performance was lacking but believed he could bounce back.
“We’ve had gaffes on both sides, but Biden-Harris is clearly the way forward,” said Tina Allen-Major, 50, an electrician from Las Vegas, as a Mariachi band played nearby. “We have to continue to protect our democracy, we have to work for what is best for our future.”
Biden wasn’t the first sitting president to stumble in the first debate, and a “slow start” is no reason to sideline him, said Sharon Tillis, 71, of Henderson, Nevada, a data collector for government policymakers. .
“When you are with someone, you remain solidly with them,” Tillis said.
Former President Barack Obama and Trump received low marks in their first debates in 2012 and 2020, when they ran as incumbents. Neither candidate’s performance led to the kind of panic that Biden’s performance triggered among some Democrats.
Brandon Colbert, a 42-year-old Teamsters convention worker in Las Vegas, said Biden’s performance was “concerning” but he believes Biden can do the job and doesn’t think it’s realistic to talk about replacing Biden as the Democratic nominee.
“Who will intervene at this point?” Colbert said. “I mean, the train is running. We have who we have. That’s what we’re going with. I still choose him over Trump.”
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Associated Press writer Seung Min Kim reported from Washington.
