Happiest September, Rulers, and welcome back! We missed you last week. The 2024 presidential campaign is in full swing, with the first debate around the corner and just 60 days till election day. So let’s get right into it! 2024 Presidential nominees Kamala Harris and Donald Trump will face off in their first debate on Tuesday. The last presidential debate in June, when Trump faced off against President Joe Biden, was the catalyst for Harris’ presidential run, when panic about Biden’s poor performance spurred Democrats to urge him off the ticket. Trump’s behavior during debates has been a focal point of his campaigns: his refusal to abide by debate guidelines, erratic interruptions and insults have drawn ire from his opponents and moderators. The last time Trump debated a woman presidential candidate one on one was Hillary Clinton in 2016, when he repeatedly followed her around the town hall-style debate stage. His body language later prompted heated debate about his perceived predatory behavior towards women. At Trump’s very first debate in 2015, moderator Megyn Kelly pressed him to address comments about women he’s made in the past, including calling them “fat pigs, dogs, slobs and disgusting animals.” “Only Rosie O’Donnell,” Trump interrupted. In a follow-up interview the next day, Trump said of Kelly: “You could see there was blood coming out of her eyes, blood coming out of her wherever.” In the light of Trump’s past debate performances, the Biden campaign requested that debate moderators mute Trump’s microphone when his speaking minutes were over. For Tuesday’s debate, however, the Harris campaign pushed to leave the microphones unmuted. But on Wednesday, after much pushback from the Trump campaign, her team acquiesced and agreed to have them muted. Observers like Debbie Walsh, director of the Center for American Women and Politics, suggest the Harris camp believes Trump’s debate behavior can be an advantage — for Harris. They may be hoping he’ll fly off the handle during the debate, highlighting his emotional, reactive nature — and distancing Harris from the enduring, Old School stereotype that women politicians are too emotional to govern. “One of the things that was always said was, ‘Well you can’t elect women to these high-level offices because every 28 days they’re out of control,’” Walsh says. “With him, it’s every other hour. This is the chance for voters to see her in stark contrast to her opponent. … letting him be the emotional one.” If Harris keeps her cool on Tuesday, that would show that “he’s the one who’s the hothead,” Walsh says, showing voters that she will “be more thoughtful and careful in the right way, as opposed to reactive and emotional.” As Tabitha Bonilla, associate professor at Northwestern University’s Institute for Policy Research sees it, the Harris campaign may be “wanting to leave the mics unmuted in the hopes of him doing something offensive,” given his previous attacks on Harris. “Harris is a strong speaker, former prosecutor, she knows how to structure an argument, she knows how to think quickly on her feet. They want to rely on her strength and showcase that against Trump’s weakness,” says Bonilla, who studies political behavior and communication. Trump’s behavior extends to women of his own party. Ahead of the 2016 primary debates, Trump’s comments about GOP candidate Carly Fiorina’s appearance became public in a Rolling Stones Magazine cover story. "Look at that face!" Trump said, when a camera zoomed in on Fiorina, according to the magazine. "Would anyone vote for that? Can you imagine that, the face of our next president?!" Fiorina fired back at Trump during the debate, saying "women all over this country heard very clearly what Mr. Trump said.” In January of this year, the GOP primary debate ahead of the New Hampshire primary was canceled because then-candidate Nikki Haley refused to take part in any debate that didn’t include Trump. Having skipped all previous debates, Trump refused to participate, so he never took the debate stage with his fellow GOP candidates. The last time the American people saw Harris on the debate stage was in the 2020 vice presidential debates against former Vice President Mike Pence. Her calm demeanor in the face of Pence’s repeated interruptions went viral, birthing the “Excuse me, I’m speaking,” buzz phrase. Her debate performance propelled the Biden campaign and galvanized women voters, says Cynthia Richie Terrell, executive director and founder of Represent Women, a research organization studying barriers to women’s political leadership and solutions for them. When Harris demanded “to be heard, that appeals to women voters and their daughters who have not always felt heard,” Terrell says. The number of independent voters is growing faster than the number of party registrants, Terrell says, and an aggressive debate performance from Trump could be a turn-off. “There's a growing group of people who want politicians to be more accountable and want them to behave better.” Trump's “behavior in 2016 was sort of entertaining,” but “fewer and fewer people feel like that’s an attribute that they want in a leader,” according to Terrell. The debate may be an opportunity for Harris to successfully disrupt the American public’s image of what a president can look like.
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