Viktorie Voriskova
September
Two candidates. Red and Blue. Ninety minutes that could have decided the direction the whole world will be heading in for the next four years… What were the consequences?
On Sept. 10, at 9 p.m. EDT, the presidential debate between the Republican candidate Donald Trump and the Democratic candidate Kamala Harris took place on ABC News. As the debate approached, high anxiety and nervous anticipation flooded America. It was the first time presidential candidates met in a debate setting after the debacle that the world witnessed on June 24—the debate between the previous Democratic candidate, current American President Joe Biden, who withdrew from the race on July 2, and Donald Trump. Ever since the fiasco of the June debate, which was one of the main reasons that President Joe Biden decided to drop out of the race for the next presidential term, all eyes have been on Kamala Harris, the current vice president of the United States.
Before the debate, Harris had appeared publicly during her numerous rallies and solo interviews, which she has given over the last few weeks. However, the general electorate still felt they needed to get to know the Democratic nominee more. A New York Times/Siena College poll stated that 28% of likely voters and 31% of registered voters expressed this sentiment. These numbers were glaringly high compared to how the electorate felt about the Republican candidate—only nine percent of the people questioned claimed that they needed to get to know Trump better.
This statistic was of special importance, especially in regards to the so-called “swing states” —states in the United States of America that don't always “turn Red” or “turn Blue.” Among these “swing states” almost all sources listed the following: Arizona, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Georgia, and Nevada, possibly also Florida, which has been won two times by each party in the most recent four elections, always by a margin no bigger than two percent. It is very often the case, as can be seen from both the 2016 and the 2020 Presidential elections, that these few states may impact the final result of the presidential race. It was Arizona, Georgia, Nevada, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin that all “turned blue,” which gave Biden the necessary electoral college votes to win the election. This gains even more significance with how tight the election currently seems to be: in a poll conducted by the Pew Research Centre during the days before the debate, about an equal percentage (49% of registered voters) claimed they would vote for Trump while an identical share would vote for Harris.
Both candidates had a chance to present themselves, as well as their prospective policies, and show to the not-yet-decided voters that they were the right choice for them. Did they manage that?
Right after the debate, Harris gained a five percent point lead among registered voters, just above the four-point advantage she had over Trump in an Aug. 21-28 Reuters/Ipsos poll. Another announcement, made within the first day after the debate, claimed that Vice-President Harris' campaign had raised $47 million in the 24 hours. Furthermore, there is clear evidence that confidence in Trump's victory is faltering within the stock market.hares of Trump’s company that owns the social media platform “Truth Social” slumped by 14% as betting odds of a win for Harris grew after the debate. Additionally, Trump Media & Technology (of which Trump owns more than 50%) slumped by 60% ever since mid-July, when Kamala Harris replaced Joe Biden as the Democratic candidate.
Another slump was in TMTG's market value—it had jumped as much as $9.2 billion as expectations of a Trump victory rose early in the presidential race, mostly after he crossed the delegate threshold necessary to win the nomination, which is 1,215 votes. However, after Sept. 10, the stock has slumped 76% compared to its peak in March.
Therefore, after the debate, there has been a clear shift of support towards Harris and, as shown by the major stock slums, a loss of trust in a possible Trump victory. However, how does all of this affect swing states and the electorate? In other words, did this debate have any real impact on the not-yet-decided voters?
Before delving into analyses, a couple of facts about the electorate need to be established for the real power of the “swing-states” to be made clear. It is important to acknowledge that Trump's base of support is solid and has a strong core in Texas, Alaska, Louisiana, Arkansas, and other states that “turn Red” in (almost) every election. This all means that Trump has a solid base of electoral college votes that he is almost certainly going to get from Texas. This will likely be the consequential 40, which is the overall biggest number of votess. However, Democrats also have their strongholds, especially on both the West and the East Coast, with New York, New Jersey, California, Oregon and Washington almost always voting Democratic at least in the last 4 elections and bringing in a significant number of electoral college votes on their own. Therefore, both candidates are confident about a large amount of electoral votes and are now fighting over the not-even-third of the electoral votes that are left.
Now, onto the analysis of the debate. Harris balanced several more liberal stances with more conservative ones, which is a staple of her strategy: attempting to present herself as a candidate that represents the values of a wide range of people. Harris continued to reinforce the argument, which she has been repeating for the last four weeks of the campaign, that Donald Trump is not a person that can be trusted on any major issue, be it abortion, the war in Ukraine, the Israel-Hamas war or any other polarizing problem. She also made a strong statement about arms ownership, saying that she “is a gun owner”, which is controversial for many Americans. However, it goes to show that she has certain conservative values that could help her lure in undecided voters who are more on the right side of the political spectrum. Furthermore, right after the debate, Harris flew over to North Carolina, a state that has voted Republican in three out of the last four elections, where she amassed over 10,000 Democratic supporters. This is a part of the Democratic strategy of entertaining rallies “on a wide map,” which, as her administration team admits, is costly. Nevertheless, it allows Harris to try and lure electoral votes even from counties that have predominantly voted “Red” in the last four years, as North Carolina did.
On the other hand, Trump has mainly stuck to the narrative of connecting Harris with the Biden administration, talking about inflation and blaming it, as well as the slow job-opportunity growth, on the Democrats and her. Furthermore, he also took a strong stance on international politics—reinforcing the refusal to be a part of NATO if other member states don't spend the demanded two percent of their GDP on defense. Additionally, Trump’s advisers see one of the most efficient electoral paths to the White House in holding onto North Carolina while winning back Pennsylvania and Georgia, battleground states won by President Biden in 2020. This shows that the Republican strategy is much more focused compared to the Democratic one. This allows Trump to take a more specific stance towards his potential voters, which is exactly what he did during the presidential debate—demonizing Democrats, spreading lies about their policies and convincing the audience that the only path to economic growth and stability is voting red.
So, how big can the impact of the debate on the undecided voters be? Charu Chanana, global market strategist at the investment platform Saxo, claims that "The U.S. Presidential debate achieved its goal by providing a decisive edge to one of the candidates in what has been an exceptionally close race.” On the other hand, Michelle Goldberg, a columnist in the New York Times stated, “I fundamentally don’t believe that people whose minds aren’t made up in this election are waiting to hear a certain policy position. If you’re making up your mind between voting for Kamala Harris and voting for Donald Trump, you are somebody who probably doesn’t care a lot about politics or pay a lot of attention to politics.”
In short, we can say the debate was successful in drawing support for Harris and a speed bump for the Trump campaign. However, these statistics still say very little about the real number of people that this event has convinced to vote one way or another. Trump and Harris have very contrasting opinions and stances on controversial issues, making it clear for many people who of the two to vote for, or rather who to definitely not vote for. Therefore, it is difficult to say if a single debate was enough to convince the undecided voters if they have not decided yet, after several long months of campaigns. However, its overall impact is difficult to tell and we will have to wait until Nov. 5 to see if the debate, campaigning and interactivity have been fruitful for either candidate.