Kamala Harris and Donald Trump are veering sharply in how they gear up for Tuesday’s presidential debate, setting up a showdown that reflects not just two separate visions for the country but two politicians who approach big moments very differently.
The vice president is cloistered in a historic hotel in downtown Pittsburgh where she can focus on honing crisp two-minute answers, per the debate’s rules. She’s been working with aides since Thursday and chose a venue that allows the Democratic nominee the option of mingling with swing-state voters.
Trump, the Republican nominee, publicly dismisses the value of studying for the debate. The former president is choosing instead to fill his days with campaign-related events on the premise that he’ll know what he needs to do once he steps on the debate stage at the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia.
“You can go in with all the strategy you want but you have to sort of feel it out as the debate’s taking place,” he said during a town hall with Fox News host Sean Hannity.
Trump then quoted former boxing great Mike Tyson, who said, “Everybody has a plan until they get punched in the face.”
I wasn’t in favour of him stepping down. And all the polls at the time showed Harris as being less popular so it just didn’t make sense.
After that debate I was still not really in favour of him stepping down from a pure just looking at the numbers stance that I’m sure still showed him as being more popular than her.
However when he called Zelensky, Putin, I knew the game was up. It was clear that he literally couldn’t function even when he wasn’t in a pressurised debate.
I don’t think it was obvious that there was a chance that Harris was going to be more popular than him until before that point really. Even then you couldn’t say for sure.
But it was obvious he just wasn’t going to make it to the election. You can’t mix up Zelensky and Putin and just carry on after that. I really think that was a much lower low than the debate.
The Democrats fucked up by not replacing Biden from the beginning, that was the time when it made sense to get rid of him. I was fully in favour of it at that point.
To change your candidate THIS close to the election of course seemed like an insane idea. The choice just got taken away in the end and he just had to go.
Thankfully it’s worked out really well but it’s easy to say that we should have changed him straight after or before that debate. The choice was not as obvious as you are making it out to be beforehand. Because the dem voters weren’t obsessed with Biden like the reps are obsessed with Trump. Everyone wanted whoever would be the best candidate to beat Trump. Literally no one gave a shit whether it was Biden or not, he just looked like the best choice until very late on.
We should’ve held a goddamn primary. If the Democrats were so convinced that the incumbency effect was worth skipping on a primary, they should’ve put it to the test and asked the American voters if they thought Biden was still the best guy for the job. Not a choice between Biden and Trump, but a choice between Biden and a number of other qualified candidates.
If we’re being honest, pre-debate I would have still chosen Biden. I still think he’s capable of doing the job of President despite the poor showing, because I know that’s not Biden 100% of the time, that’s him 1% of the time when not on top of his game.
Couldn’t be happier with the Harris replacement, though. It brought the energy we were sorely lacking. I’m just crossing my fingers and playing that people show up in November. Please, god, don’t let that fucking crook back in.
I think Biden would have still won. Incumbency and name recognition is huge advantage among people who bother to vote in primaries.
It would basically be Biden on one side with several candidates splitting the anti-Biden vote.
now to be clear, we didn’t quite lose the incumbency advantage, given that kamala is a VP currently, so there’s actually a much less significant cost here in this case.