Republican strategist Scott Jennings said Wednesday that former President Donald Trump was doing fine in his debate with Vice President Kamala Harris until about 15 minutes in.
At that point in the ABC debate in Philadelphia, Harris turned an answer on immigration into a dig about crowd sizes at her opponent’s rallies.
“Incredibly, Trump, on his bread-and-butter issue, allowed himself to be sidetracked by a taunt from Harris about his rallies,” Jennings wrote in the Los Angeles Times, saying Harris ignored a question on why the current administration had only recently taken action on securing the border.
“And he just couldn’t stand it,” Jennings, who also contributes on CNN, said. “Instead of nailing her on one of her weakest issues, his voice rose, and he instead offered a spirited defense of his rallies.”
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People attend a watch party for the Presidential debate in New York on September 10, 2024. Republican commentator Scott Jennings said former President Donald Trump went “off the rails” during the event after Vice President Kamala Harris made a comment about the crowds at his rallies.
LEONARDO MUNOZ/AFP via Getty Images
Before the jab on crowd size, Harris was asked what she would do differently from President Joe Biden with regard to the border, and used the opportunity to slam Trump’s stance on a bipartisan border bill negotiated by the Biden administration.
The bill, which received initial support from both Democrats and Republicans, lost GOP support after Trump publicly voiced his disapproval of it. Critics accused him of opposing it in order to prevent Biden and Harris from receiving a political win ahead of the election.
“That bill would have put 1,500 more border agents on the border to help those folks who are working there right now, overtime, trying to do their job. It would have allowed us to stem the flow of fentanyl coming into the United States… That bill would have put more resources to allow us to prosecute transnational criminal organizations for trafficking guns, drugs and human beings,” Harris said.
After that, Harris invited voters to attend one of Trump’s rallies, saying they would see that he did not care about the issues which mattered to them, before saying that his supporters were leaving early out of “exhaustion and boredom”.
Jennings wrote that this was the pivotal moment of the night, “and the rest of the debate went off the rails for Trump”.
Jennings repeated criticisms from other Republicans that moderators David Muir and Linsey Davis appeared to fact check Trump multiple times but not Harris.
However, the columnist said this was “no excuse” for the Republican candidate to become sidetracked and not drive home a central theme to voters, that he offered change.
Going into the debate, the race was a tossup nationally and in the battleground states. Harris, who was widely seen as the night’s winner in postgame analysis—including on Fox News—will now need to wait until post-debate surveys are conducted to see whether her performance was enough for her to improve her margins.
A Morning Consult poll, conducted among 10,607 likely voters from September 6 to September 8, found Harris with a 3-point lead over Trump (49 percent to 46 percent). A New York Times/Siena College poll, conducted among 1,695 likely voters from September 3 to September 6, found Trump with a single point lead (48 percent to 47 percent).
Elsewhere, a HarrisX/Harvard University poll, conducted among 2,358 registered voters from September 4 to September 5, found Harris and Trump tied, each receiving 50 percent of the vote in a two-way race.
With tight polling numbers, Jennings said these showed Trump was in a position to win in November, especially if voters want to “punish” Harris over the Biden Administration’s record.
“But the debate offered him perhaps his best chance to cement his position in the campaign, and, like his somewhat disappointing convention speech, he missed a moment,” Jennings concluded.
