What we can expect from Kamala Harris and Donald Trump in tonight’s debate

Tuesday night will be the first face-to-face meeting between Donald Trump and Kamala Harris, who took over the Democratic ticket in July.

It could also be the last. So tonight, both candidates need to define the contest on their terms.

With tonight’s debate possibly being the only time the two candidates will be onstage together making their respective cases, the pressure is on both Harris and Trump to set the tone of the contest for the 53 days between now and Election Day. For Harris, that means keeping alive a surge of momentum which has overtaken her party since Joe Biden stepped aside. For Trump, it means blunting that momentum and making up lost ground — while redefining his own image for a general election audience which even he now admits turned away in 2020.

The two candidates will probably pursue similar strategies to achieve these goals.

Behind one lectern will be Harris, the incumbent vice president and sudden standard-bearer for not just the Democratic Party but almost four years of a Biden-Harris administration. That means essentially defending her and Biden’s records as a president seeking re-election might do, while also fielding the inevitable attacks from Trump surrounding her rise: the digs at her becoming the Democratic nominee without winning a single primary, the shots aimed at the traditionally do-nothing role of the vice presidency.

But she has an advantage here, given that voters supported the Biden-Harris ticket over Trump in 2020 — she’s seen as the natural successor to the president, blunting the effectiveness of those attacks. Her real challenge tonight will be centered around her opponent, and finishing the job her campaign has been doing for weeks: tying him to his running mate, JD Vance, and the insulting, sexist views he has expressed about women and childless American adults in comments to various conservative groups and interviewers.

In other words, Harris needs to paint Trump as “weird” — and do it to his face, in a way that plays well for the cameras.

One question for Harris: Does she mention Project 2025, the Trumpworld-adjacent effort to write a conservative blueprint for reshaping government? Or does she avoid getting into the weeds, and simply work to depict the ex-president as an abortion-banning, immigrant-hating bigot whose running mate thinks women have no purpose outside the home?

Donald Trump will be seeking to tie his opponent to a running mate, too. Just not the one you’re thinking of.

For the Republican candidate, tonight will be about weighing down Harris with the baggage of Joe Biden, warts and all. On that note, expect some heavy foreign policy-related jabs from the ex-president onstage, particularly around the widely criticized withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2021. An early blemish on Biden and Harris’s joint tenure in the White House, 13 US service members died in a suicide bombing during the chaotic pullout while American commanders remained publicly baffled about the strength of the Taliban and the weakness of US-backed Afghan forces.

At home, the battle will be on to tie Harris to the most painful parts of the Biden economy — persistently high consumer prices, driven by soaring energy costs related to Covid and the war in Ukraine. Mentions of illegal immigration and crimes committed by migrants (which Republicans wrongly claim to be fueling a crime wave) will also likely come up here.

There may be a few pointed remarks, too, about the president’s mental capacities. His withdrawal from the 2024 race has led many on the right to speculate that he may not be up to the job at all; they’ve subsequently accused Harris (and the media) of covering for him.

The ease of his vice president’s ascension notwithstanding, Biden’s departure from American political life was one of the ugliest moments in recent electoral memory, one Harris would likely rather forget but one her opponent will be all too eager to bring up. And it was all kicked off by Trump himself, thanks to a rare pre-convention debate between the two presumptive nominees that began a multi-week death spiral for the Biden campaign. Trump will very likely bring up his former opponent’s disastrous performance, as well as the public clamoring by elected members of Biden’s party for him to step down.

On this issue, however, there’s a newly arisen pitfall for the Republican: his own age, which now puts him well senior of his opponent. Harris could see a reversal of a dynamic that vexed Biden for months, playing in her favor if she emerges from Tuesday appearing more vigorous and more present than her counterpart.

Less than two full months remain ahead of Election Day after the two candidates meet Tuesday night. There is precious little time left to shake up the dynamics of the 2024 race, and even fewer promising opportunities left after tonight to do so. Every sentence counts.