The aspirational nature of Harris’s presentation was a solution to a problem of her own making. After all, she has been vice president of the United States for more than 3 1/2 years. If she had a great record during that time, she would have highlighted it. But her record is thin, at best. So she made promises for what she would do as president, promises to create something she called an “opportunity economy,” to restore abortion nationwide, and to pass a failed bill that she claims would fix the disastrous situation she and President Joe Biden created on the U.S.-Mexico border. It was all very…aspirational.

Harris’s promises gave Trump one of his best moments of the night, which, unfortunately for Republicans, came at the very end of the debate. “She just started by saying she’s going to do this, she’s going to do that, she’s going to do all these wonderful things,” Trump said in his closing statement. “Why hasn’t she done it? She’s been there for 3 1/2 years. They’ve had 3 1/2 years to fix the border. They’ve had 3 1/2 years to create jobs and all the things we talked about. Why hasn’t she done it?”

At that moment, a number of Republicans thought: Why didn’t Trump say that earlier? Why keep it until his closing statement? It was one of the main points he needed to make, and the first time he made it in a concise and penetrating way was at the end of the night, when millions of people had probably tuned out.

The complaint pointed to two larger problems with Trump’s performance: one, an inability to focus on a few points he wanted to make throughout the debate, and two, an inability to ignore Harris’s carefully planned trolling.

In Philadelphia, the two were related. In interviews and public appearances, Trump has always believed in hitting back every time he is hit. It has generally worked well for him over the years. He doesn’t care who attacks him — a political opponent, a former aide, a Gold Star father — when Trump is attacked, he hits back. The problem on the debate stage was that Harris knew she could attack, attack, attack and Trump would spend precious time hitting back. So the Republican hope of relentless focus on the points Trump needed to make went out the window. 

Harris’s troll-and-bait strategy turned out to be a big success. She trolled Trump about his rallies and said, “People start leaving his rallies early out of exhaustion and boredom.” She knew that would get a response out of Trump, and indeed it did. “We have the biggest rallies, the most incredible rallies,” he said. On another occasion, she said world leaders “are laughing at Donald Trump” and “say you’re a disgrace.” Of course Trump rose to that bait, too. On still another occasion, she referred to Trump’s inheritance from his father, who was a wealthy real estate developer, saying, “Not everybody got handed $400 million on a silver platter.” Trump addressed that, saying, “I wasn’t given $400 million — I wish I was.” And then, on yet another occasion, Harris trolled Trump about the Democratic lawfare campaign against him. “Excuse me,” Trump answered. “Every one of those cases was started by them against their political opponent.” It was an answer that was true but got Trump started on his legal issues and not on making the case against Harris.

After the debate, the left-wing website Vox published an article headlined, “How Kamala Harris goaded (and goaded and goaded) Trump into a debate trainwreck.” The goading part was indisputably true — it’s been a big part of Harris’s campaign since she was handed the Democratic nomination in late July. The part that is unknown is whether the debate will turn out to be a train wreck.

It’s important to remember there was another side to the debate. First, Harris’s case for herself was pretty flimsy. Pre-debate polling showed that many voters feel they don’t know enough about her, and they might not have responded well to her claim that she and Joe Biden “clean[ed] up Donald Trump’s mess” when, in fact, they brought inflation, the border catastrophe, and international disorder. And despite all the Harris trolling, Trump managed to make one of his most important points, that under his watch the economy did well, several times. Trump also repeatedly managed to make the point that after his good economy, Biden-Harris inflation made life harder for millions of people.

One more note. Trump faced a significant obstacle in the debate, and that was the team of ABC News moderators, David Muir and Linsey Davis. Many Republicans believe they were biased against Trump. They were, but that was not exactly unexpected. Their decision to do live “fact checks” on Trump, but not on Harris, will create a lot of scrutiny of their performance on the right. (It is already being cheered on the other side, with Muir and Linsey hailed as virtual heroes of the resistance.) The ABC News debate will also create another category of debate fact check — fact checks of the fact-checkers.

This newsletter has often made the point that it takes a few days for voters to process a big event. First, most of them did not watch the debate. They will learn about it from media reports and from discussions with friends and family. They will also place it into the context of what they already know about Trump and Harris. So everyone should wait before forming a final opinion on what impact the first, and likely only, Trump-Harris debate will have on the 2024 race.