WASHINGTON: With the United States presidential elections less than two months away, both the Democrats and the Republicans are pushing to gain the upper hand — a key aspect of which also includes the presidential debates.
US Vice President and Democratic candidate Kamala Harris is preparing for her highly anticipated September 10 debate with Donald Trump by focusing on ways to unnerve the Republican candidate and draw attention to his frequent falsehoods on policies and recent history, all with an eye toward social media, aides and advisers say.
Harris last appeared on a debate stage in 2020 against then-vice president Mike Pence, a night heavy on policy discussions and punctuated by Harris' rebuke of former vice president Mike Pence's interruptions, yet probably remembered by most American voters for the fly that photo-bombed the event.
This time, the democratic candidate plans to focus on what her team calls Trump's failures on the US border wall, infrastructure and the COVID-19 pandemic while hoping to avoid getting pulled into personal attacks, they said.
For their part, Trump and his running mate, JD Vance, have attacked Harris and President Joe Biden for inflation, the high number of illegal immigrants crossing on the US southern border and economic proposals they say will drive up government spending.
Trump's personal attacks on Harris have escalated as she has edged ahead of him in national opinion polls since Biden was pushed out of the presidential race on July 21 after a disastrous performance in the June debate.
Harris has delivered a handful of policy-focused speeches but US voters will be watching closely for more details.
"Independents in swing states still need and want to hear more detailed policy proposals from her," said Republican strategist Rina Shah. "She will also need to hit back at Trump [...] with facts, figures, and data on what he got wrong during his administration."
How the vice president interacts with Trump, who has repeated his false claims that he won the 2020 election, is another point of interest.
"She should let him talk over her. Not just let him, but goad him into spouting insane conspiracy theories about the previous election," veteran Democratic strategist James Carville wrote in a New York Times opinion article on Wednesday.
Harris's team believes the debate will be watched by many as video clips on social media platforms like TikTok and X, and will be looking for ways to create moments that people want to share. That includes trying to push Trump into saying things he shouldn't say, two sources said, such as potentially inflammatory or offensive remarks.
Mock debates
Harris has been conducting mock debates for the prime-time face-off with Philippe Reines, a longtime adviser to former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. He has played the role before.
For several days before the matchup, Harris will park herself on Pennsylvania's western border in Pittsburgh, doing a mix of campaign events there before flying to Philadelphia for her first encounter with the former president.
President Barack Obama, who has been informally advising Harris, followed a similar strategy in 2012 when he was running for reelection, basing himself in the swing state of Nevada for days of prep ahead of his first debate with Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney in Denver.
Harris's campaign has been seeking to get under Trump's skin since she became the Democratic standard-bearer, calling him "weird," a term Harris's running mate, Minnesota Governor Tim Walz, first wielded against the Republican.
Her campaign expects the debate to be important but not necessarily move the needle in terms of how it affects public perceptions of the former president.
Trump's June debate demeanour against Biden was more measured and disciplined than some of his past performances.
