Harris faces tough hurdles in first debate

Vice-president will need to define herself while parrying Trump’s attacks

- ALLAN WOODS

The first presidential faceoff between Donald Trump and U.S. President Joe Biden proved once again just how much debates can matter in an election.

Biden’s catastrophic performance ended his hopes for a second term in office and gave the Democratic Party, Americans and the world the prospect of Kamala Harris as the next occupant of the White House.

Her path isn’t obstacle-free, though, and she’ll face numerous complicated hurdles Tuesday night when she debates Trump in a televised encounter hosted by ABC News.

To pass what many see as Harris’s first real test of the eight-week sprint to the Nov. 5 vote, the potential commander-in-chief who shows up to the Philadelphia TV studio will need to be a fastmoving, tough-to-hit, multi-tasking master.

Here are just a few of the things she’ll need to accomplish if she wants to emerge victorious from the 90-minute clash, which begins at 9 p.m. EDT.

1. Reintroduce herself ... again Harris has spent her life in government and more than two decades as an elected official, first running as district attorney in San Francisco in 2002, then as attorney general of California in 2011. She stepped onto the national stage as a U.S. senator in 2017. Biden picked her as his running mate in 2020.

Despite her time in public office, potential voters feel they still don’t know enough about Harris and her plans for the presidency, according to a New York Times/Siena College poll conducted from Sept. 3-6.

An overwhelming majority of respondents said they knew enough about Trump to make up their minds, but more than three-in-10 Americans said they needed to learn more about Harris. More than 60 per cent said they wanted to know more about her policies.

Her presidential cotillion came during last month’s Democratic National Convention, when the daughter of immigrants laid out her very American life story and said: “I promise to be a president for all Americans.”