After a dominating performance against President Joe Biden back in June, Kansas City-area political science experts said former President Donald Trump appeared rattled in Tuesday's presidential debate against a much younger Democratic nominee, Vice President Kamala Harris.
Even though Harris was evasive answering issues on her policy positions, panelists on KCUR's Up To Date said that she was easily able to draw Trump off topic, outperforming the former president.
"Kamala Harris probably could have gone into more detail," said Dr. Matt Harris, an associate professor of political science at Park University. "She sort of controlled the debate by sort of presenting her vision and then needling former President Trump in ways that she knew would get him off track."
While Harris did share some plans for her potential presidency, Kansas City, Kansas Community College and UMKC communications professor Dr. Scott Elliot said Trump failed by not focusing on why Harris hasn't taken action on those policies during her time as vice president.
"He should have come in from the very top and say, 'She's been here for three and a half years. She said that she was in the room when these decisions were made, why haven't these decisions been made?'" Elliot said.
"For the rest of this debate," Elliot continued, "you have to answer for what you've done for the past three years, and that would have been a better framing of the debate."
Unlike the last presidential debate, the CBS moderators occasionally refuted false or misleading comments made by the candidates — more commonly directed at Trump.
"They pushed back on some of the more egregious statements that were made," said Johnson County Community College political science professor Dr. Andrea Vieux.
And although Vieux said too many interruptions from moderators can be distracting, "they could have gone farther with some of that fact checking."
"It's difficult to moderate a debate that Donald Trump is in because the lies come so frequently," Harris said.
Up To Date's panel of experts agree Trump lost the debate.
"The flash polling suggests that Kamala Harris scored a pretty decisive victory in the minds of most of the people who watched," Harris said. "But then the follow up to that is like, well, does it matter? Because for Donald Trump, I think to a certain extent, the bar is on the floor."
- Dr. Matt Harris, associate professor of political science, Park University
- Dr. Andrea Vieux, associate professor of political science, Johnson County Community College
- Dr. Scott Elliot, professor of communication at Kansas City, Kansas Community College and adjunct professor of communication at the University of Missouri-Kansas City
