Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump’s first, and possibly only, presidential debate left partisans on both sides declaring victory, though the impact on undecided voters is less clear.
The debate also sparked a lively discussion about the role of debate moderators, as some Trump allies and conservative media critics cried foul at the attempt to fact-check the candidates in real time.
The 90-minute event in Philadelphia included a good deal of sparring between the candidates, though they shook hands while appearing together at a 9/11 memorial in New York on Wednesday morning.
With public opinion still closely divided, both immediately returned to the campaign trail, Trump in Arizona and Harris in North Carolina.
Many observers, including some Trump allies, have said that Harris appeared to handle the debate better than Trump.
Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) told reporters after the event that was “a missed opportunity” for Trump to challenge Harris.
Former independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said in a televised interview with Piers Morgan Uncensored, “I think that Vice President Harris was better prepared and that she was much more polished.” Kennedy added that Trump’s delivery was subpar.
While that may be pleasing to Harris supporters and some independent voters, the experts we consulted said the debate was unlikely to have a significant impact on the race.
“Typically, debates do not seem to have much of a lasting effect on vote choice,” Karen Hult, a political science professor at Virginia Tech, told The Epoch Times.
Reuters said that out of a group of 10 undecided voters it interviewed after the debate, six said they would now either vote for Trump or were leaning toward him. Three said they would support Harris, while one remained uncertain.
As of yesterday, Harris led Trump by an average of 2.8 percent in recent polls, about the same as a week ago.
Debate moderators David Muir and Linsey Davis of ABC have drawn criticism for their handling of the event. The duo undertook the first-ever live fact-checking of presidential candidates by debate hosts.
Previously, that function had been left to journalists behind the scenes, who published their findings separately from the debate itself.
“They weren’t necessarily in control of what was going on, and they only fact-checked one of the two candidates,” Andrew Selepak, a professor of journalism at the University of Florida, told The Epoch Times.
Some Trump partisans agreed, including former Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy. “It was a three-on-one debate. There’s no doubt about it,” Ramaswamy told reporters after the debate.
Trump also was critical of the pair, calling for their firing in a speech in Tucson, Arizona, on Wednesday.
Steven Fein, a professor at Williams College specializing in media and presidential debates, saw that as confirmation that Trump did not perform well. “I would also add that there’s an old saying in sports: If you’re complaining about the refs after the game, it means you lost,” Fein told The Epoch Times.
The controversy may point to the larger problem of effectively holding presidential candidates accountable for their remarks in real time, essentially correcting sound bytes with sound bytes on live TV.
Those claiming bias pointed out that fact-checking was applied unevenly. Muir and Davis challenged four statements by Trump and none of Harris’s.
That’s a simplistic analysis according to Fein.
“If Harris had said any of the truly outrageous and unsubstantiated claims that Trump did (e.g., executing live babies, hordes of migrants stealing and eating family pets), I am confident she would have been called out for them. If not, then there certainly would be evidence of bias,” Fein said.
At least one instance of fact-checking appeared problematic, however. After Trump said the crime rate was rising rapidly, Muir pointed out that the FBI’s crime report showed otherwise.
That led to a debate within the debate in which Trump argued with Muir, saying that the FBI statistics are incorrect because they do not include data from many of the nation’s most dangerous cities.
According to data provided to The Epoch Times by the FBI, as of July, more than a quarter of the departments that had been reporting crime stats to the FBI were no longer participating due to a 2021 change to a more complex reporting system.
The appearance of neutrality was a casualty of the debate according to Tim Graham of the conservative Media Research Center. “A good moderator asks serious questions on serious topics and doesn’t ‘fact check in real-time,’” Graham told The Epoch Times. “A good moderator should sound neutral.”
After the event, Harris’s campaign manager was eager for an encore. “Vice President Harris is ready for a second debate. Is Donald Trump?” Jen O’Malley Dillon said in a statement.
Speaking from the spin room after the event, Trump said he would consider a second debate. Two days later, he ruled out the possibility. “Kamala should focus on what she should have done during the last almost four-year period. There will be no third debate!” Trump wrote on social media on Thursday.
