“Hey, guys, you know what?” Sen. Kamala Harris interjected as her opponents in the first 2020 Democratic primary debate squabbled with one another, “America doesn’t want to witness a food fight. They want to know how we’re going to put food on their table!” The crowd in Miami’s Arsht Center erupted in applause, and even the targets of her zinger had to acknowledge her handiwork. Joe Biden, standing a few feet away with a half-smile on his face, turned to Harris and immediately applauded her, like Novak Djokovic clapping hand-to-racket in recognition of an opponent’s brilliant passing shot.
I wasn’t on the debate stage with Harris that night — the large size of the Democratic field necessitated two split-roster primary debates — but her command of the moment impressed me, too. “She really gets it,” I remember telling a friend as we watched the broadcast. “She’s not getting caught up in what’s happening onstage. She’s keeping her eye on what the voters at home really care about.”
Watching Harris from a couple of podiums down the stage that night, what struck me was how undaunted she was.
Harris’ poise, her no-nonsense style and her grasp of what voters wanted to know continued to impress me when we shared the stage at more than a dozen candidate forums and three debates in 2019. I saw those qualities in person a few weeks later when Rep. Tulsi Gabbard attacked Harris’ prosecutorial record at the second primary debate in Detroit. Listing off a litany of Harris’ supposed failures on the issue of criminal justice reform, Gabbard gathered steam. “And the people who suffered under your reign as prosecutor — you owe them an apology!”
Watching Harris from a couple of podiums down the stage that night, what struck me was how undaunted she was. “I am proud of those decisions,” she declared, defending her record with a passion and a confidence that stopped Gabbard’s momentum cold. Kamala got the better of that one, I thought as I looked on.
Harris’ abilities shone through again in an exchange during her vice presidential debate with Mike Pence in the fall of 2020. “Mr. Vice President, I’m speaking,” she pushed back firmly as Pence interrupted her. “That is absolutely not true,” she then retorted calmly as Pence began misrepresenting Biden’s record. And finally, “If you don’t mind letting me finish, we can have a conversation, OK?” she said before returning to making the case for Biden.
Harris’ ability to stay on message in even the testiest moments and to make the case against Trump and for herself is a skill she undoubtedly sharpened as a local prosecutor, state attorney general, U.S. senator and vice president — and they will be key in Tuesday night’s debate. Trump regularly lies, hurls insults and stirs chaos in debates to keep himself at the center of attention, smear his opponents and distract voters from his utter lack of policy knowledge.
Trump, in short, lives for the food fight. But his nastiness has landed poorly with most debate viewers. He lost every single one of the 2016 and 2020 general election debates, according to polls taken immediately after them. Only Biden’s subpar performance this summer was enough to make Trump a debate winner in the eyes of much of the viewing public.
She’s an effective messenger, and she has a compelling message to deliver.
Expectations are higher for Harris on Tuesday night than they were for Biden in July, yet I’m convinced she can not only meet those expectations, but exceed them. She’s an effective messenger, and she has a compelling message to deliver. Harris has lived the American Dream: the daughter of hard-working immigrants who blazed a trail of firsts throughout her career as a lawyer and a public servant. Her story reflects the aspirations of so many families in our country and speaks to a deeply cherished belief in America as a land of opportunity.
The vice president can also point to the country’s impressive comeback from the pandemic under the Biden-Harris administration: creating more jobs than any other administration in history, expanding access to affordable health care, bringing inflation under control and passing the largest infrastructure investment in generations. Harris can remind viewers that Trump has talked about “Infrastructure Week” for four years but that she and Joe Biden got it done — and millions of Americans will go to work because of that. Harris has already offered several policy proposals during her brief campaign that resonate very well with voters, from protecting the freedom to choose to expanding tax credits for small-business startups to making it easier for Americans to afford homes.
There’s at least one more reason to have confidence in Vice President Harris on Tuesday night. Trump was convicted on 34 felony counts. He still faces dozens of criminal charges in other jurisdictions. He was held liable for sexual abuse. He’s been ordered to pay hundreds of millions of dollars for defamation and fraud. And no one else, in the history of presidential debates, has more experience than Harris in prosecuting the case against a criminal.
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