Who Won the Debate? Harris and Trump Both Claim Victory

What happens when a former president whose own niece has diagnosed him as a “narcissist” is declared the loser of a crucial debate that could make or break the 2024 presidential election?

He declares himself the winner.

“Comrade Kamala Harris is going around wanting another Debate because she lost so badly – Just look at the Polls! It’s true with prizefighters, when they lose a fight, they immediately want another. MAGA2024,” Donald Trump posted on his own social media platform. He cited a far-right Newsmax snap poll conducted after the debate that declared Trump the winner over Harris by 93 percent to 6 percent.

The former president’s alternate reality conflicts with that of others, including his current and former GOP allies who said he blew it on stage Tuesday night against Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris.

The conservative aggregation site, the Drudge Report, declared: “The End.” Republican spinmeisters in the debate spin room in Philadelphia couldn’t sugarcoat the situation.

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC), a golf buddy and close ally of Trump, said the performance by the leader of his party on Tuesday night was a “disaster.” He told reporters in the spin room after the debate that Trump’s debate prep team should be fired.

Fox News’ Brit Hume said, “Look, make no mistake about it, Trump had a bad night. He rose to the bait repeatedly when she baited him, something I am sure his advisors had begged him not to do.”

A CNN snap poll declared Harris the winner, 63 percent to 37 percent. Going into the debate, 50 percent of those same respondents thought Harris would win, while the other half predicted a victory for Trump.

A Harris campaign official said the vice president won big among battleground undecided voters on the issue of race, according to their post-debate unofficial polling. “Vice President Harris’ response to Trump’s racial comments, where she said there is more that unites Americans than divides us, is the strongest moment of the night for her,” the official said. “Strong with both men and women.”

Harris has been doing well among women voters, polling shows. Male voters are a target demographic she needs to win over.

Whether rattled by Harris’ unexpected handshake that she offered as she strolled onto the stage or simply unprepared, Trump was incoherent and visibly unhinged at times during the course of the 90-minute debate, espousing bizarre, unfounded conspiracy theories about immigrants in Ohio stealing and eating domesticated pets (kittens, dogs and ducks).

“In Springfield, they’re eating the dogs, the people that came in, they’re eating the cats,” Trump said at one point, “they’re eating the pets of the people that live there.”

“Oh come on,” Harris appeared to say as her mic was muted, visibly outraged.

ABC News debate moderator David Muir corrected Trump, saying the city manager of Springfield, Ohio, said there were no “credible reports of specific claims of pets being harmed, injured or abused by individuals within the immigrant community.”

Trump former ally and debate tutor Chris Christie, the former governor of New Jersey, praised Harris’ performance and said Trump “spent more time talking about people eating pets, people at his rallies and whether he had more or less, than he did about the economy and that is a huge fail tonight.” Christie said on ABC News’ special coverage that Harris “laid traps and he chased every rabbit down every hole instead of talking about the things that he should have been talking about.”

CNN host Chris Wallace said Tuesday’s debate was “just as devastating” for Trump as the one between the former president and Joe Biden in June, when Trump won and Biden was forced to bail out of his race for re-election. On Tuesday, it was Trump who lost, Wallace said. “On substance I think she pitched a shutout, and I think she did on style as well,” said Wallace, who moderated a 2016 debate between Trump and Hillary Clinton.

Jon Ralston, a veteran political campaign reporter and commentator in Las Vegas, declared “Harris crushed Trump” but said he had no idea how her debate victory will affect the outcome of the election.