It’s official, the big winner of the June debate was Kamala Harris. Lets face it: She didn’t win the 1st debate for having the best policies or being the most liberal or progressive. She won because was the only candidate who landed any punches against Biden.
Before the debate, Harris was registering 4th in national polls and 5th place in the early primary/caucus polls around 7%. Now she’s registering in double digits and in 3rd place.
Just look at the post-debate RealClearPolitics polling averages:
NATIONALLY
Joe Biden 28%
Bernie Sanders 16%
Kamala Harris 15%
Elizabeth Warren 12%
Pete Buttigieg - 5%
Beto O’Rourke & Cory Booker - 2%
Julian Castro, Tulsi Gabbard, Amy Klobuchar and Andrew Yang - 1%
USA TODAY IOWA POLL
Biden - 24%
Harris - 16%
Warren - 13%
Sanders - 9% (yikes)
Buttigieg - 6% (no longer in double digits)
Do you guys think she can maintain this momentum? We have seen her walk back her comments about wanting to abolish private health-care insurance.
Biden slipped in the polls because he did terrible in the debate. He wasn’t crisp. Not even close. And the one on one with Harris flummoxed Biden for the rest of the debate.
For Harris to maintain her momentum, she needs to define her policies and begin laying them out. It was only one debate. The second debate will begin separating out the wheat from the chaff.
Harris had a good showing and kind of took the reins as a member of the next generation of Democratic leaders. Neither Sanders or Biden did particularly well, which opened a lot of eyes. Both seemed to be a bit slow in their responses and just robotic…not really adapting to the situation.
Harris has been defining herself and has been, in my view, the one with the most direct views. I like where she is going. And she hasn’t really begun to go into full battle mode.
I’m sorry- I agree with the NBC analyst that opined the winner of the Democratic debate was Donald Trump.
I get it the party often flocks in the direction of where their political core lies when selecting for a party nomination…but too many Dems in that debate espoused positions that will be hard to walk back in a general, and I do not believe those positions are shared by those swing voters that will make the difference in swing states.
I knew that Dems would start mistaking voters’ dislike of Trump as equivalent to liking their more liberal positions.
I saw nothing in this first debate that indicated anything other than they are indeed making that mistake.