Who won the presidential debate? Our experts are divided

Donald Trump vs Kamala Harris proved to be a spiky affair. Here is our analysis on who came out on top

Kamala Harris was not an especially clear communicator on Tuesday night, and spent little time on the debate stage talking about her major policy commitments.
But she did accomplish something that Donald Trump’s opponents have tried to achieve since he first ran for office in 2016: she made him look ridiculous.
Twenty minutes into the debate, she launched an attack line tailor-made to wind him up.
“I’m going to actually do something really unusual, and I’m going to invite you to attend one of Donald Trump’s rallies, because it’s a really interesting thing to watch,” she said.
“You will see during the course of his rallies, he talks about fictional characters like Hannibal Lecter. He will talk about ‘windmills cause cancer’.
“And what you will also notice is that people start leaving his rallies early out of exhaustion and boredom.”
Vice Pres. Kamala Harris invites voters to “to attend one of Donald Trump’s rallies,” saying, “The one thing you will not hear him talk about is you. You will not hear him talk about your needs, your dreams and your desires.” https://t.co/tkEn0wzLvL #ABCDebate pic.twitter.com/df6RwpOrr5
That line set the tone of the rest of the debate. Trump was furious, and immediately began to ramble about illegal migrants eating dogs and cats — a recent and bizarre Republican conspiracy theory. Harris stood back and laughed at him.
Later, she dug in the knife again. “I have travelled the world as vice president of the United States and world leaders are laughing at Donald Trump,” she said.
Trump, incandescent, began to talk about his friendship with Viktor Orban (who is not wildly popular in the US) and claimed North Korea, China and Russia were “afraid” of him. Harris again looked delighted.
“Perhaps we do not have, in the candidate to my right, the temperament or the ability to not be confused about facts,” she said.
The same argument, it must be said, was made about her boss Joe Biden less than two months ago.
Ms Harris is not the better debater of the two candidates, and knew she was entering Tuesday’s event with the weakness of an incumbent candidate in an unpopular administration.
She gave woolly and unclear answers on questions about the economy, and could not convincingly shrug off accusations from both Trump and the moderator that she has abandoned many of her beliefs in favour of the pursuit of power.
Her strength came in her understanding of Trump ─ a man she has not met at all during this campaign─ and his hatred of being humiliated. His performance was derailed by his anger, and his attack lines were far less fluent than in previous debates.
It is difficult to crown Harris the victor of a political debate in which she said so little about her own platform. But her attack strategy won her the night. Trump fell for it: hook line and sinker.
“They’re eating the dogs,” might be the most memorable line in debate history, but this debate won’t change very much. The short take, as predicted, is that he was crazy and she was insufferable. Prejudices were aired and confirmed.
Kamala Harris was, of course, much better than Joe Biden, and this actually made Donald Trump better, too. Both looked good (Kamala rocked a show-jumper look) and were pretty disciplined, till Harris cleverly deflected from a question about immigration to suggest people find Trump’s rallies boring – and Trump lost his cool, segwaying into that Lincolnesque monologue about migrants eating dogs and cats in Springfield, Ohio.
The ABC moderators, themselves dressed as the cast of Double Indemnity, challenged Trump on this, as they did almost everything. It seems almost impossible to find a media outlet that won’t wade in on the side of the Democratic candidate.
The Vice President scored two palpable hits: on abortion and on Trump’s reputation among world leaders (”they can manipulate you”). But her prep seemed to consist of memorising words and phrases and repeating them in random order: democracy, values, middle-class kid. We should be “lifting people up,” she said, “not beating people down” – adding that Trump was “beating people down” rather than, uh, “lifting people up.”
Vice Pres. Kamala Harris challenges former Pres. Donald Trump to compare policy proposals: “Let’s compare the plans … As opposed to a conversation that is constantly about belittling and name-calling.” https://t.co/frwH3t9KP5 #ABCDebate pic.twitter.com/brJh7HKmzf
Yet punching down was almost all the lady did, telling us that Trump sold the country out to China, is extreme, was somehow responsible for Covid’s economic effects. You, said Trump, are “weak and stupid.” Also maybe black, perhaps not; and saddled to a President who “doesn’t know he’s alive.”
Why did the moderators not follow up on this: perhaps ask why Biden had to leave the ticket? Instead, as Harris bemoaned that Trump wants to drag the country backwards, they were happy to revisit 2020 and the January 6 riots. Anyone watching learnt nothing about pre-college education or Social Security. On healthcare, Trump said: “I have a concept of a plan.” Meanwhile, Harris is probably planning a concept.
Go granular, and you might judge Trump to be a centrist. Kamala believes in no-restriction abortion; Trump is for state control and exemptions. His tariff plan was good enough that the Biden administration kept parts of it – same with immigration. He wants to bring the war in Ukraine to an end in order to save lives. “She is a Marxist,” he said, and there’s little proof of that. But her face-pulling was off-putting.
If Trump’s rallies empty early, Trump claimed that hers are bussed-in – and I can believe it. “I’m talking now, if you don’t mind, please,” he said, evoking a line she used against Mike Pence in 2020. Her voice can take on the quality of fingernails running uninterrupted down blackboard.
The race is close and will likely stay that way, which I count as a narrow win for Trump, for Harris didn’t blow him out of the water. Meanwhile, someone needs to check on the pets of Springfield, fast.