People watch the presidential debate during a debate watch party at Shaw’s Tavern on Sept. 10, 2024 in Washington, DC.Alex Wong/Getty Images
Even before the people of Washington State’s windswept Olympic peninsula tuned in for Tuesday’s presidential debate, there were signs they were leaning toward Kamala Harris.
Donald Trump, with his glowering depiction of a nation in decline, did little to convince them otherwise, residents who spoke with The Globe and Mail on Wednesday said. Instead, they saw Ms. Harris stage a performance that sought to diminish her opponent – whom she was meeting for the first time – while fashioning herself as a serious candidate with ideas for the future and a command of fact.
“I don’t see how anybody who is truly undecided could have looked at that debate last night and not decided to go with Harris,” said Ron Richards, a lawyer who founded a natural gas company and formerly served as a commissioner in Washington’s Clallam County.
He votes Democrat. But his county, as best he can tell, is with him. “They’re solidly swinging to the Democrats.”
Since 1980, Clallam County has been alone among U.S. counties in consistently voting for the winner in each presidential election, making it the country’s most reliable bellwether – and, today, one proxy for how Ms. Harris and Mr. Trump have been able to hone their appeal and prompt voters to change their minds, or fail in that task.
Current polling shows a tie between Ms. Harris and Mr. Trump, both nationally and in the seven swing states expected to decide the result. It will take days for pollsters to assess any immediate effect from the debate, and months to determine whether it proved consequential.
On Wednesday, however, Mr. Trump told Fox News he believes he won the debate “by a lot.” His campaign declared that Ms. Harris “did nothing to win over undecided voters.” It cited reporting from Reuters, which interviewed 10 such people Tuesday night and found that six were leaning toward Mr. Trump after the debate.
Harris beats Trump in debate, poll
The majority of U.S. registered voters who watched the televised
debate between Kamala Harris and Donald Trump believe
that Harris won, according to a CNN flash poll
POST-SEPT. 10 TV DEBATE: Who performed better? (%)
KAMALA
HARRIS
DONALD
TRUMP
63
37
PRE-SEPT. 10 TV DEBATE: Who will perform better? (%)
KAMALA
HARRIS
DONALD
TRUMP
50
50
POST-JUNE 27 TV DEBATE: Who performed better? (%)
JOE
BIDEN
DONALD
TRUMP
33
67
Harris-Trump poll: Conducted by SSRS Opinion Panel on behalf of CNN via text messages
with 605 registered U.S. voters who watched debate. Margin of error ± 5.3 percentage
points Biden-Trump poll: Conducted by SSRS Opinion Panel on behalf of CNN via text
messages with 565 registered U.S. voters who watched debate. Margin of error ± 5.5
percentage points
graphic news, Source: CNN; getty images
Harris beats Trump in debate, poll
The majority of U.S. registered voters who watched the televised
debate between Kamala Harris and Donald Trump believe
that Harris won, according to a CNN flash poll
POST-SEPT. 10 TV DEBATE: Who performed better? (%)
KAMALA
HARRIS
DONALD
TRUMP
63
37
PRE-SEPT. 10 TV DEBATE: Who will perform better? (%)
KAMALA
HARRIS
DONALD
TRUMP
50
50
POST-JUNE 27 TV DEBATE: Who performed better? (%)
JOE
BIDEN
DONALD
TRUMP
33
67
Harris-Trump poll: Conducted by SSRS Opinion Panel on behalf of CNN via text messages
with 605 registered U.S. voters who watched debate. Margin of error ± 5.3 percentage
points Biden-Trump poll: Conducted by SSRS Opinion Panel on behalf of CNN via text
messages with 565 registered U.S. voters who watched debate. Margin of error ± 5.5
percentage points
graphic news, Source: CNN; getty images
Harris beats Trump in debate, poll
The majority of U.S. registered voters who watched the televised
debate between Kamala Harris and Donald Trump believe
that Harris won, according to a CNN flash poll
POST-SEPT. 10 TV DEBATE: Who performed better? (%)
63
37
KAMALA
HARRIS
DONALD
TRUMP
PRE-SEPT. 10 TV DEBATE: Who will perform better? (%)
50
50
KAMALA
HARRIS
DONALD
TRUMP
POST-JUNE 27 TV DEBATE: Who performed better? (%)
33
67
JOE
BIDEN
DONALD
TRUMP
Harris-Trump poll: Conducted by SSRS Opinion Panel on behalf of CNN via text messages with 605 registered U.S. voters
who watched debate. Margin of error ± 5.3 percentage points Biden-Trump poll: Conducted by SSRS Opinion Panel on
behalf of CNN via text messages with 565 registered U.S. voters who watched debate. Margin of error ± 5.5
percentage points
graphic news, Source: CNN; getty images
A CNN instant poll found viewers showed greater faith in Mr. Trump to handle the economy and immigration. But they also emerged from the debate with a discernibly more favourable opinion of Ms. Harris.
Democrats exuberant after Harris’s performance against Trump in presidential debate
Todd Belt, a political scientist at George Washington University, said most undecided voters don’t watch the debate in real time. Instead, they consume media coverage and watch clips in the subsequent days. This means the narrative that Ms. Harris won – along with her best lines circulating online – is helpful for her campaign.
“Her zingers are being repeated today as though she overwhelmingly won. That will help her with voters,” said Prof. Belt, an expert in the presidency and public opinion, and the director of GWU’s political-management program.
This also matters in Ms. Harris’s case because she was not able to fully introduce herself to voters through a primary process, as most candidates do. So putting in a strong performance gave her an opportunity to win over people who may not yet have been familiar with her, he said.
He praised Ms. Harris for promising a departure from the chaos of the Trump years.
“Harris was able to talk about the future, whereas Trump kept talking about the past. She used that to her advantage, talking about turning the page and moving forward. Sixty per cent of voters say they want a candidate who will bring change,” he said.
In a Wednesday morning focus group organized by the political advocacy group Republican Voters Against Trump, nine “swing-state flippers” – voters who supported Mr. Trump in 2016 and Mr. Biden in 2020 – all said they would vote for Ms. Harris if the election was today.
“What we know about swing voters is the more they see of Trump, the more they dislike him,” said Rylee Boyd, a spokesperson for Republican Voters Against Trump.
“It continues to show just how much momentum Kamala Harris has been able to get – and to continue to have.”
Ms. Harris’s campaign tried to take ownership of the debate about the debate on social media, turning out a steady stream of videos clipping her zingers and showing cable news pundits declaring her the winner.
Trump rejects idea of second round as he contends with fallout of first debate against Harris
In one Wednesday afternoon post on the X social-media platform, the campaign wrote, “Our newest ad just dropped.” Below was a link to a video of the entire 100-minute debate.
Mr. Trump argued that his opponent’s promises were empty, but he was overshadowed by Ms. Harris’s taunts that he is weak, and by his own credulous argument that migrants are eating pet cats and dogs in Ohio, a claim local officials have rejected as untrue.
In Clallam County, voters had already been shifting toward Ms. Harris’s party.
In primary votes held last month to select state-level candidates for the fall ballot, a majority of Clallam voters selected Democratic candidates for governor, secretary of state and attorney-general. The Republican vote share decreased by roughly five percentage points from 2020.
The county sits on the country’s geographic fringe, reaching to the most extreme northwestern point in the contiguous United States, in a state that is solidly Democratic. But with its population of loggers, Salish peoples, retirees and craft brewers, Clallam made itself uniquely important in understanding the shifts in sentiment by which presidencies are won and lost.
Even Pamela Blakeman, who chairs the local Republican Party, said Mr. Trump looked in the debate to be “swatting at flies constantly and not doing a great job of bringing any clarity.”
Ms. Harris, by comparison, “was very poised and articulate – but not authentic,” she said. Ms. Blakeman nonetheless has no intention of breaking her allegiance to Mr. Trump, whose descriptions of a downward turn in American fortunes match her own experience.
Other supporters of Mr. Trump faulted moderators for challenging his factual inaccuracies.
“The biggest thing I learned is that the media is doing a very poor job in reporting facts,” said Kim Butler, a retired school food service director in the county. Still, she gave Ms. Harris credit for rattling Mr. Trump.
“She was much more prepared than I ever thought she could be for a debate,” Ms. Butler said, although her “answers sounded nice but had no substance.”
For others, Ms. Harris gave new reason for confidence.
“I have always liked Kamala Harris,” said Lynn Ilon, a retired professor. “But last night is the first time I saw her as ‘presidential.’”