“Why Didn’t She Do it?”

Harris debated well, but she’s stuck with her own record as vice president

Vice President Harris during the presidential debate.

Vice President Harris came out talking a good policy game in the presidential debate, promising an “opportunity economy,” a $6,000 tax cut to young families, a $50,000 tax deduction to startup small businesses, $25,000 in down-payment assistance, “sustaining America’s standing in the world.”

President Trump was fortunate to have won a coin toss that earned him the last word for his closing statement: “Why hasn’t she done it?” he asked the voters, then addressing his opponent directly: “You haven’t done it and you won’t do it.”

Trump noted that Harris has been vice president for three and a half years. “We’re being laughed at all over the world,” Trump said.

By that point it was nearly 11 pm on the east coast, but it was the final thought that any undecided or wavering voter would be left with. 

Harris tried valiantly to distance herself from the incumbent administration: “Clearly, I am not Joe Biden,” she said somewhat plaintively at one point.

Trump tried just as valiantly to link her to the incumbent administration and its record. “She is Biden,” Trump said, “The worst economy we ever had.”

Harris tried to portray herself as a fresh face. “It’s time to turn the page,” she said. “Chart a course for the future and not go backward into the past.” But “turn the page” is a hard case to make as an incumbent vice president. 

There were exchanges where Harris was effective—about abortion, or about January 6, or about Trump’s proposed tariffs. Her big problem is and has been, though, that a lot of voters in the key states are unhappy about the inflation, about the illegal immigration, and about the foreign policy weakness including the chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan, the Russian invasion of Ukraine, and the October 7, 2023 attack on Israel and rise of Iran and its proxies. It’s hard for Harris to sell herself convincingly as the solution to those problems when they happened on her watch. As Trump asked after Harris went on and on about her plans for turning things around, “Why didn’t she do it?” 

In the debate format, Harris didn’t get a chance to respond. That’s probably for the best, because there is no good response. 

Harris could have blamed Republicans in Congress for being an obstacle, or blamed Trump and Republicans in Congress, as she attempted to do on immigration. The ABC News moderator David Muir undercut her on that by noting that, as the election approached, the Biden administration finally managed to get a better handle on the flow of migrants. He asked why the administration had waited until six months before the presidential election.

Harris could have blamed Biden, though that would have only invited questions on which of his actions she disagreed with, and whether and how she made her disagreement known at the time.

Anyway, Harris showed herself a capable, well-prepared debater, perhaps a plausibly presidential figure, but Trump didn’t allow himself to get rattled, and he landed a fair number of attacks of his own. Harris might have won if you judge the thing on debating points. But she’s stuck defending the record of an administration that has delivered mediocre-to-bad results on the issues that Trump has been emphasizing—the three “I’s” of inflation, immigration, and international security. 

So if you believe Nate Silver that Trump went into the night with an electoral college advantage, it’s hard for me to see that Trump lost significant ground. Trump may have even helped himself some, particularly with people who kept watching all the way until the end.

There was a brief couple of weeks where the Democratic decision to dump Biden for Harris looked successful. If Harris loses, though, Biden will figure that he might have done better than her himself, which is what he thought all along and what explains his decision to run for re-election and his delay in dropping out after his own debate with Trump. The Gavin Newsom, Gretchen Whitmer, Josh Shapiro types will be able to say they would have had a more convincing answer to the “why didn’t she do it?” question, because they weren’t in the White House for the past three and a half years, they were just running their own states.

Harris running as “turn the page” when she’s been vice president for three and a half years just comes off as phony—as phony as her campaigning as a tax-cutter, or as a unifying figure, or as the defender of democracy, or as middle class. Trump has plenty of flaws. I’m not here to tell anyone who to vote for. I’m just analyzing and reporting. The analysis is I don’t think Harris closed the deal with enough swing voters with her performance tonight to significantly affect the election’s outcome. As Trump made clear, the key issue isn’t debate performance, but performance of the Biden-Harris administration over the past three and a half years. Whatever solutions Harris now has to offer as a candidate, she didn’t get them done as vice president.