Could the Trump-Harris presidential debate sway undecided voters? | DW News

I had great debates I thought this was my best debate yeah Donald Trump making up weird stories about people eating dogs and cats I think he's crazy Donald Trump continues to focus on what the American people want to talk about which is their paychecks she was so sarcastic and it really irked him she listened to Donald Trump's answers and responded to them in devastating ways she had the former president on the defense I think C here has made a lot of mistakes tonight the people who are um supporting Camala Harris and Joe Biden don't know what's going on he's really trying to unify our country he's trying to bring us back together she uh explained more I think Trump was more flustered I think Kam [Music] won welcome to the day we begin with the most highly anticipated moment of the US presidential race between KLA Harris and Donald Trump millions in the US and around the world tuned in to watch the presidential debate The Showdown was the first chance for Americans to see the two candidates square off over issues like the economy migration and Reproductive Rights and it was a feisty encounter with each candidate accusing the other of lying vice president Harris repeatedly attacked Donald Trump on his economic policies and his record as president Harris also focused on Reproductive Rights accusing Mr Trump of wanting a nationwide abortion ban Donald Trump focused on inflation and immigration and said that vice president and President Biden had allowed millions of migrants to enter the US Trump also said Harris had flip-flopped on key policies so who came out on top DW went to Harris and Trump watch parties to ask people what they thought of the candidates performances she's actually staying on point staying on topic answering questions giving facts and figures and her opponent can't string a sentence together got the convicted Criminal on trial he know he doesn't stick to the script he can't he just can't stick to he said they're eating dogs in a little town somewhere I think it's been great I think Trump has been holding his own he's been on point and sharp right to the the point answering the questions and most importantly calling her out my impression is that Trump is very honest he speaks from the heart he speaks the truth um he knows the facts he knows the story and I I wholeheartedly believe that he would be the best president for the United States of America well let's pick through this event with our Washington uh uh the bureau chief Enis Paul welcome enus what stood out for you I think the very beginning when CA Harris and uh uh Donald Trump entered uh the stage and she just walked up to him and kind of forced him uh to shake her hands her hand by nearly pulling him behind his his own desk uh there couldn't have been any uh bigger difference to the beginning of the debate between Donald Trump uh and Joe Biden when kind of after the second second or so uh it was clear that uh Joe Biden wasn't really there and might uh most likely lose this debate so she really set the tone uh of the whole evening Within These first 30 seconds or so and we just heard a lot of voice a lot of Voters there they've already made their minds up how much do you think this debate can influence uh the outcome of the election well it is the first debate uh between uh uh Trump and uh Harris and uh as uh Donald Trump is very well known for the American audience and the worldwide audience I assume Camila Harris is still kind of of a newcomer so she really needed uh to be able to present herself to uh make clear what she stands for to also show that she uh as a woman uh would be capable to be the commander uh in Chief so the stakes definitely were in a way higher for her you know the debates how much do they matter I mean even if people win a debate it doesn't mean that they win the election we might remember the debate uh between Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton in 2016 where she got out as the clear winner but by the end of the day lost the presidential uh election so we shouldn't overestimate but this is such a special race as you know CA Harris got into this race so late in the game and is kind of a not so well known figure so I think it was more important than other debates might have been but let's also uh not make a mistake here most of the voters on in both camps are already decided so it's about these up to 200,000 uh undecided voters in these very important swing States they might have been somewhat influenced by the debate but it's definitely not a deal maker or breaker we heard Donald Trump there saying that he thought this was his best debate performance yet tell us more about how the campaigns of both candidates are reacting yeah both comp of course claimed Victory but that's also common right after uh debates I mean the first like polls right after the debate showed uh the it's called flesh fund like from CNN for example I'm just looking down here on my paper uh showed a 63% win of CA Harris over uh Donald Trump that also reflects the commentaries the editorial pages of the papers also on the more conservative side uh this morning morning but still Donald Trump um kind of tries to to show off to say that he won because and that is actually true CA Harris didn't really present clear plans how she will handle migration for example or push uh the economy um but um he also of course and that was also clear pled the two moderators who were what he says more critical with him than with Camala Harris uh so he kind of portrays himself also a little bit as a victim here um but yeah both both camps claim a victory but the overall take here in this country at least is that camela Harris left the stage as the winner of this debate and just another couple of words about the attacks launched by each C by each candidate um we had KLA Harris she seemed to go on the attack from the start trying to go Donald Trump um do you think that tactic works worked it totally worked I mean that was her main goal I think to kind of you know get him off kind of uh uh lose his make him lose his guard kind of make him show who he is and they did she did that uh as I just said from the very beginning uh on by just forcing him uh to shake her hand what he doesn't like to do um what she did brilliantly in my opinion was when it came to the topic of migration she kind of turned the content Away by talking about the sizes of the crowd visiting Trump rally that's a very sensitive topic for Donald Trump and he took this bite and instead of really cornering her on migration issues and the fact that there is no uh efficient border control in place he took that bite and got into like tell or trying to tell the viewers that he has the biggest crowds ever in the world so um yes she was able to trigger him and she was able to distract him in that way that he didn't really push her into difficult places where she might have had a hard time to take or to keep her stance because immigration and inflation two of his lines of attack key issues in in this election and it sounds like he didn't manage to to and those punches he did not uh indeed and that's kind of surprising because everybody knew that that would be her uh kind of take her strategy uh and he obviously couldn't help himself being himself what we heard from his advisers before the debate everybody was hoping from this camp that he wouldn't fall for this baites uh uh but he did so there was no real discussion about uh inflation about the economy about migration the topics which indeed matter most uh uh for the voters here in the United States so in that regard this debate as many others uh was kind of disappointing but you know Phil this is a TV format I mean this is mostly about emotions and defects we rarely he hear any like really deeply uh thought through political um strategies or plans this is really more for like the show and the quick win and did we learn anything about uh the candidates foreign policy aims yeah that's also interesting uh because normally you know foreign policy doesn't play hardly any role in a presidential election here in the United States as it does not in many other countries but this is a little bit different because of course the war in Ukraine and the huge debates about how much uh money the United States would be willing uh to spend and support uh Ukraine so this this is a debate in the States since many months also like how much other NATO uh countries uh should pay for this military Alliance so this also played a role uh in this debate in the contrast was really sharp here Donald Trump refused uh to say that he would uh uh support Ukraine and would hope for a win uh uh of Ukraine over Russia and on the other hand uh there was Camala Harris like uh leaving no doubt how much she believes in the importance of NATO how important it is for her that the NATO allies trust uh uh the United States so that was a a huge uh a huge difference here and also when they talked about Israel which is also Al an important topic in many swing States especially as the Arab American vote does matter as it will be such a small a margin by the end of the day which will decide the outcome of the vote here camela Harris uh differs a little bit from the uh take of uh uh Joe Biden she of course supports the right of Israel to to defend itself but it's much more critical with with Israel's politics uh in in Gaza and also supports a two-state solution uh so that was a very kind of um clear message on her side on the other hand uh Donald Trump was very hard to understand what he meant when he was talking about the conflict so there we also saw kind of a Shar contrast good talking to you as ever enus thank you so much enus pole in Washington presidential candidates kamla Harris and Donald Trump joined President Joe Biden in New York to remember the victims of 9/11 standing in silence to Mark a day of national mourning hours earlier they were facing off on stage in Philadelphia in their first debate Harris was often on the front foot as the pair sparred over issues from foreign policy in the economy to the highly sensitive topics of abortion gun control they also attacked what they saw as each other's moral failings I told you she was ready speaking to her supporters afterwards Harris was buoyant all right hey Billy all right so you guys know how I am okay today was a good day we got to work tomorrow 56 days to go we got a lot of work to do Democrats at a debate watch party shared her enthusiasm she's actually staying on point staying on topic answering questions giving facts and figures and her opponent can't string a sentence together visiting the spin room after the debate Trump was bullish I say the truth if I lose votes or gain votes I don't care but uh this was my best debate I thought it was very good I thought she was very weak on foreign policy she was very weak in the Border an opinion echoed by his supporters I think it's been great I think Trump has been holding his own he's been on point and sharp right to the the point answering the questions and most importantly calling her out the debate cemented support for each candidate in their respective camps but we'll have to wait until November to see if it was enough to to move the needle for undecided voters a group that could prove critical to securing an election Victory well let's take a look at this with Karen seol she's an assistant professor of political science at the University of Arkansas in the United States welcome to DW we just heard Donald Trump there saying he thinks that that was his best ever debate performance what did you think well I I don't think he's wrong he certainly did a good job of kind of restraining himself uh not being as reactive as he normally might be and especially given the number of times that uh vice president Harris tried to reel him in kind of bait him um I think he remained relatively calm you know there were times he he showed his you know his dis his disappointment in what she was saying but all in all I would say he actually stayed more on message than he has in previous debates and is this debate performance from either of of both candidates is this likely to sway undivided undecided uh voters do you think yeah believe it or not these debates uh that occur in the weeks before a general election in the US can be impactful because there are a number of Voters that are truly undecided they're nonpartisan or they have low information so these debates can help them to understand who these candidates are better as well as how they handle themsel in a debate because that might translate into how they might handle themselves with other world leaders so you see this actually impacting the outcome of this election yeah the the elections in the US are often decided on the margins the folks that are uh not part overly partisan maybe don't even vote every election or really just remain undecided until the end because they're not paying attention um it's a small number of people but those folks especially the ones that live in the Battleground states are essential to reach with this messaging which is why you had the debate in Pennsylvania to begin with was to try and attract some of those voters do you think there will be another one well you know if I had a crystal ball I would probably go and put some money on that but I don't and it's really hard to predict um one of the candidates Donald Trump whether or not he would want to perform in another debate clearly KLA Harris would like to challenge him to one more debate but you know he always has a very kind of negative perception of these debates because they tend to be hosted by the mainstream media which he distrust um and he clearly did not come out as the person with the momentum out of this debate many believed kamla handled herself well the bar was higher for her and she did reach that and so she might be the one to benefit if there was another debate so that might tell you the how he will calculate whether or not he decides to participate again and now that Taylor Swift has endorsed kamla Harris is that likely to have any impact well you know certainly it might with a few of those undecided voters that you know maybe don't pay attention to politics but they love Taylor Swift but you have to keep in mind the target audience for Taylor Swift a lot of these folks are under 18 not legally of age Dev vote yet in the United States so you know I don't know that it'll have a measurable impact um but it certainly helps in terms of perceptions around the race it may help in terms of her getting more endorsements from other folks like Taylor Swift who are really popular maybe a Beyonce will endorse it's really hard to measure endorsements in their impact but generally endorsements don't make or break a race good talk you thank you so much for joining us Karen seol assistant professor of political science at the University of Arkansas thank you