Rewatching the 2020 Vice Presidential Debate between Mike Pence and Kamala Harris makes for useful preparation ahead of the debate between the current Vice President and the former President, due to take place next week on Tuesday 10 September, at the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia.
There’s little about Donald Trump’s previous debates that should lead us to believe he’ll do anything but overwhelm nuance with his usual stridency around the dangers of “Commie Kamala”. Harris, however, remains something of an enigma. Her late entry into the race as the principal candidate means she’s only done one proper sit-down interview (with CNN), which is either a canny tactical decision or an unnecessary slip. Canny since she was climbing in the polls and didn’t need to wrestle back any focus from the other side (that’s been Trump’s chief aim for the past four weeks); a slip since it allowed Trump to accuse her of running away from scrutiny. It didn’t seem to matter that before Biden dropped out of the race, it was Harris hitting the networks to offer the most robust defence of the President. That makes her recent choices look strategic.
