Why I Expect a Powerful Debate Performance from Kamala Harris

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Laura Washington is a political commentator and veteran journalist in Chicago. She wrote this column for the Chicago Tribune.

The big debate, the highly anticipated showdown between Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris and former Republican President Donald Trump, is just days away. The September 10 debate will be the first, and perhaps last, time these candidates will face off.

Ever since Harris was named the Democratic Party’s nominee, Trump has been trying to lure her in with insults and slander. He wants to smoke her out by forcing her to respond to his insults. So far, his racist and sexist insults have backfired. His claims that Harris is unintelligent and not really “black” have backfired. Harris blithely ignores the insults.

Trump is a schoolyard bully with a remarkable lack of imagination. His childish insults have highlighted his inability to compete. It’s like playing tennis with himself, hitting the ball against the wall.

Trump will likely appear extremely frustrated and energized at the debate, but he will be up against an opponent who is much smarter and faster.

It’s the criminal versus the prosecutor. That’s an oft-repeated pitch from the Harris campaign. It resonates, thanks to the 34 felony convictions hanging around Trump’s neck. It’s a battle between a crime fighter and a criminal.

So, during the debate, Harris should lean on her extensive record as a prosecutor, from her crusade to jail heinous sex offenders, to prosecuting drug cartels, to taking on the big banks that victimized thousands of families during the national foreclosure crisis. Touting her tenure as a prosecutor both validates her intellect and signals that Harris wants to be seen as a law-and-order candidate. That message could protect her from Trump’s claim that Harris is a soft-on-crime, bloody-heart, San Francisco “commie.”

Harris’ critics last criticized her for running a lackluster campaign. The then-U.S. senator and former California attorney general dropped out of the crowded race for the Democratic presidential nomination in December 2019, two months before the primary season began.

That is almost forgotten now. I believe her 2024 campaign was almost flawless and very convincing.

Still, I will never forget Harris’s star performance in the 2019 presidential debate, a harbinger of a powerful performance to come.

In the run-up to the Democratic presidential primary, Harris had the biggest breakout moment of the campaign. She took then-presidential candidate Joe Biden to task for his record on race and civil rights, leaving the sitting vice president in a heap of shameful dust.

During that debate, Harris turned to Biden, noting that he had praised John Stennis of Mississippi and Strom Thurmond of South Carolina, “two United States senators who built their reputations and careers on racial segregation in this country,” she said. “Not only that, but you worked with them to oppose busing.”

Biden looked shocked at the podium and responded, “It is a misrepresentation of my position on all fronts.”

“I wasn’t against busing in America,” he continued. “What I was against was the busing that was mandated by the Department of Education.”

Harris refused to give in.

“There was a little girl in California who was in the second grade that integrated her public schools, and she was bused to school every day,” Harris responded. “And that little girl was me.”

Months later, Biden chose her as his running mate. He knew Harris was an asset he couldn’t pass up.

And now here she is, preparing for another crucial debate, this time as a rising Democratic candidate taking on a fading Republican opponent. Trump will try to cast her as soft on crime, a coddler of the Black Lives Matter, “defund the police” crowd. Her record will tell otherwise.

He will deploy his usual fear-mongering, warning suburban women that her type is coming for them and burning their white picket fences to the ground.

Trump will certainly continue to trash talk. Last week, in response to Harris’ CNN interview, Trump took to social media to claim she was “babbling incoherently.”

And at a campaign rally in La Crosse, Wisconsin, Trump “ranted about Harris’ big interview and mocked her for her aesthetics,” the New York Post reported. “She sat behind this desk — this huge desk — and she didn’t seem like a leader to me,” Trump exclaimed.

Don’t worry. On September 10, I expect Harris to stand on the debate stage, look Trump in the eye, and deliver a devastating rebuttal in court. She will use the opportunity to bait Trump and, with a bright smile, paint him as a small-time con man whose poll numbers and electoral prospects are shrinking by the second.