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Speaker 1: The US presidential debate between Kamala Harris and Donald Trump

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Speaker 1: was pretty sharp. Elbowed ninety minutes of television. Harris put

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Speaker 1: Trump on the defensive though on abortion rights, foreign policy,

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Speaker 1: and the January sixth insurrection, but they also sparred on

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Speaker 1: the economy and on immigration. Joining us now to discuss

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Speaker 1: is Scarlett maguire, who is the polls director at Jail

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Speaker 1: Partners and focused on the US scarlet good morning and

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Speaker 1: thank you for being with us? Does this debate, to

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Speaker 1: your mind leave the Democrats in a better position polling wise?

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Speaker 1: How did Harris come across? See she is in some

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Speaker 1: ways that the lesser known debter.

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Speaker 2: Perhaps I think we'll have to wait a little bit

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Speaker 2: to see how this really embeds itself in the polls.

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Speaker 2: But my instinct having watched the debate is that Harris

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Speaker 2: will be left in a slightly stronger position than Trump

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Speaker 2: off the back of it in what is a very

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Speaker 2: close race. I think, even though American voters are very

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Speaker 2: keen to see her set out a policy platform which

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Speaker 2: we did not get last night, I think the way

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Speaker 2: in which she handled herself and which she was able

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Speaker 2: to fraud and provoke Trump into not sticking to message

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Speaker 2: meant that she edged a win last night, and I

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Speaker 2: think will be left in a better standing with the

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Speaker 2: American public as a result.

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Speaker 3: When it comes to the hot button issues though for voters,

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Speaker 3: did the candidates manage to distinguish themselves in terms of

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Speaker 3: how they position themselves on things like abortion rights, which

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Speaker 3: we know is a key issue that the Kamala Harris

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Speaker 3: campaign are keen to distinguish themselves on.

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Speaker 2: I think, yes, the abortion rights. The Democrats want to

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Speaker 2: put abortion firmly on the ballot in November. In some

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Speaker 2: states it literally will be, but in terms of the

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Speaker 2: presidential race, they want to make sure that is front

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Speaker 2: of voters minds as they are confident that this is

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Speaker 2: a clear win for them. I think Harris did win

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Speaker 2: that issue last night, as it were, but again that's

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Speaker 2: not a surprise. I thought what was more striking was

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Speaker 2: that I didn't feel that Donald Trump was able to

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Speaker 2: land clear blows on the issues that we know are

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Speaker 2: the biggest priorities for the American public, which are the

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Speaker 2: border and the economy, and these are both issues that Trump,

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Speaker 2: at least up until last night, had leads on Harris

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Speaker 2: on big leads over Biden, and still leads on Harris

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Speaker 2: on the economy and the border, and he really leaned

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Speaker 2: last night to deliver a very very clear, triumphant win

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Speaker 2: on those issues, and I think he failed to do that.

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Speaker 1: Okay, that's interesting. I mean on the economy, though there

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Speaker 1: was much talk around inflation, Trump saying that there had

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Speaker 1: been no inflation during his administration, and that's not quite true,

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Speaker 1: that there was low inflation during his administration. They also

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Speaker 1: talk quite a bit on tax policy, on tariff policy,

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Speaker 1: and so you don't feel that Trump managed to extract

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Speaker 1: wins on those core topics.

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Speaker 2: I think what Donald Trump needed to do was to

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Speaker 2: pin Kamala Harris down to Biden's record on the economy

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Speaker 2: and to specifically on inflation, by which I mean cost

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Speaker 2: of living, because that is how voters in America anyway,

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Speaker 2: and I think voters here to think about the think

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Speaker 2: about the economy and inflation specifically. They do not actually

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Speaker 2: watch the inflation figure and if it's coming down, say okay,

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Speaker 2: it's fine, I approve of this. What they actually noticed

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Speaker 2: is what's happening to their own household finances and whether

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Speaker 2: they still feel under pressure, and crucially, whether they felt

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Speaker 2: under more pressure than they were four years ago. And

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Speaker 2: what Trump I think failed to do was very to

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Speaker 2: tie Harris to what most American voters see to be

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Speaker 2: a failed record on the economy for the ticket that

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Speaker 2: she was part of for the last administration, the administration

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Speaker 2: that's still going now. I think tariffs, it was an

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Speaker 2: interesting conversation. It's a very interesting debate, different debate in

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Speaker 2: America than it is in the UK on the conversation

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Speaker 2: of tariff's but it's not as important as that central

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Speaker 2: question of inflation, which should be a very big weakness

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Speaker 2: of Kamala Harris. And again I think Trump was unable

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Speaker 2: to exploit that.

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Speaker 3: Did of course, we know that the small number of

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Speaker 3: swing states is where this election is going to be decided.

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Speaker 3: Did you have the impression that this debate was focused

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Speaker 3: at targeting those voters in those states on issues that

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Speaker 3: are particularly important in places like Pennsylvania.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, so Pennsylvania is the one everyone's really really watching.

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Speaker 2: It's obviously other states as well, So the sort of

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Speaker 2: seven to look Ouva, Pennsylvania, and Michigan, Wisconsin, Nevada, North Carolina, Arizona,

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Speaker 2: and Georgia. I think though it's not so much you

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Speaker 2: do see actually occasionally lyned so in Kamala Harris's CNN interview,

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Speaker 2: for example, that there seemed to be a sense that

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Speaker 2: when she was really talking about those reductions the diabetes payments,

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Speaker 2: for example, that she might be targeting a specific amount

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Speaker 2: of diabetes users in one of those states. However, last night,

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Speaker 2: I don't think that was the case so much, actually,

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Speaker 2: because actually what those seven swing states have in common

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Speaker 2: with the rest of the America again is this concern

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Speaker 2: about economy and the border. There are women's rights and

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Speaker 2: abortion issues there as well, but those two are the

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Speaker 2: dominant ones, so it's not so much of their states

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Speaker 2: specific although there is evidence that swing voters in those

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Speaker 2: swing states do feel under more economic pressure than other voters,

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Speaker 2: so it might be that they care even more about

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Speaker 2: the economy. But generally speaking, those concerns actually fly across

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Speaker 2: the board, and I didn't get a particular sense last

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Speaker 2: night that they were squarely focusing on, say, fifty thousand

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Speaker 2: voters in Pennsylvania.

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Speaker 1: The US election, of course, usually important globally in terms

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Speaker 1: of the messages getting out there. I mean, just looking

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Speaker 1: at the newspaper headlines, for example, Politico Harris gets under

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Speaker 1: Trump's skin over and over the FT's headline Harris needles

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Speaker 1: Trump in firey presidential debate in the Telegraph in the

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Speaker 1: UK has a different story, Donald Trump attacks Kamala Harris

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Speaker 1: over policy U turns in debate. Those are the newspaper takes.

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Speaker 1: But actually it's social media and memes that perhaps are

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Speaker 1: going to be even more important in this election. We've

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Speaker 1: certainly seen it in terms of fundraising that it's the

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Speaker 1: social media push. As a polster, what is your impression

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Speaker 1: of that social media drive and how the debate is

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Speaker 1: going to be chopped up and sliced and pushed out

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Speaker 1: there on social media.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, I think it's a really good point

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Speaker 2: about the sort of decline in how much what the

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Speaker 2: press says in in this election will matter. I think

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Speaker 2: in America it's actually even more. That's even more the case,

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Speaker 2: but also has been for a while because their media

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Speaker 2: system is pretty much entirely bifurcated along along political line.

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Speaker 2: So you'll get sort of Republican television stations and newspapers

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Speaker 2: and then the Democrat equivalent, and actually most people, even

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Speaker 2: sort of ordinary people or swing voters, will get their

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Speaker 2: news from either one side or the other. So actually,

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Speaker 2: the fact that newspapers or television stations say that would

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Speaker 2: always endorse Trumps, be writing positive things about him after

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Speaker 2: a debate like this or vice versa, doesn't actually change

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Speaker 2: things that much, and that's been the case in America

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Speaker 2: for a while. But on the specific question of social

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Speaker 2: media clips, yeah, I mean we've seen the impact of

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Speaker 2: something going viral and what impact that can have. I

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Speaker 2: would always sound a little caution though, because I think

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Speaker 2: when we are very online and very engaged online and

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Speaker 2: very over engaged, I would say politically, with us having

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Speaker 2: this conversation here and probably people listening to the radio station,

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Speaker 2: I think we can forget that actually a lot of voters,

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Speaker 2: and again the voters that will decide this election, are

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Speaker 2: not They are not overly politically engaged, and actually a

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Speaker 2: lot of them don't even tend to be that online.

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Speaker 2: And so I think we've learned some lessons before, say

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Speaker 2: even the twenty sixteen election or Brexit, about overinterpreting what

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Speaker 2: seems to be very clear online when it comes to

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Speaker 2: an election result with the general public,