The US election is now approaching with a TV duel between Donald Trump and Kamala Harris. A US media professional believes he knows which of the two will emerge as the winner.
Kamala Harris and Donald Trump will meet for the first time in a TV duel on Tuesday at 9 p.m. and on September 11 at 3 a.m. German time. The broadcaster ABC is broadcasting the debate, and Trump and Harris can also be seen live on some German channels. What do US experts expect from the TV debate?
“We’re probably going to see a lot of Trump’s grimaces,” says Andrew Selepak BuzzFeed News Germany from IPPEN.MEDIA. He is a professor at the University of Florida’s College of Journalism and Communications and has already explained to us why Trump often resorts to insults during the election campaign. “Harris will have a hard time,” he fears. There are many reasons for this.
Kamala Harris loses an “important strategy” in the TV debate against Trump
Reason number one: “Harris has too little experience with TV debates,” says Selepak. She conducted her first one in the primaries of the Democrats in 2020. “She was destroyed by former Democrat Tulsi Gabbard,” says the political communications expert. “The limited experience she has is not enough to take on someone like Trump, who has nine years of experience and becomes a beast in such duels,” he says.
Harris’ second encounter with TV debates was during a vice presidential debate with Mike Pence. At the time, Harris benefited from Pence repeatedly interrupting her. “That made Pence look like a kind of arrogant man who was trying to be arrogant and dominant over a woman. She received a lot of praise for that in the media at the time.”
The problem: During the TV debate between Trump and Harris on Tuesday, Trump’s microphone will be turned off when Harris speaks and vice versa. “The loss of this important strategy will hurt Harris,” says Selepak BuzzFeed News GermanyIn addition, the candidates are not allowed to take notes with them to the TV debate. “That helps Trump because he always speaks very generally and doesn’t care about statistics, like Harris.”
TV debate on the US election in Pennsylvania: “This will certainly not go down well with the people there”
The third reason why Harris is “in a bad position” not only on TikTok but also in the TV debate: The debate is taking place in Pennsylvania. The state is one of the so-called swing states, which means that a victory there over the US election For people in Pennsylvania, the topic of fracking is very important – a process for extracting natural gas or oil from rock. “Donald Trump was always in favor of fracking. Kamala Harris was against it in 2019 and then suddenly changed her mind when it became clear that she needed Pennsylvania. That certainly won’t go down well with the people there,” Selepak suspects.
According to a study According to the Ohio River Valley Institute’s 2021 survey, 31 percent of people in Pennsylvania are in favor of fracking. 55 percent want natural gas production to stop immediately or in the long term. “Pennsylvania is currently the most important state when it comes to the Electoral College,” says Selepak. The US election is not decided by the popular vote, but by the Electoral College, says Selepak. In other words, it is not the total number of votes cast in the USA, but how many votes the candidates receive among these 538 electors from the 50 states.
According to forecasts by analyst Nate Silver, Trump’s chances of winning here are higher than ever before at 60 percent, while Harris only has just under 40 percent. And: Harris’ lead over Trump in the popular vote shrinks“Many people have placed their hopes in the Democrat and celebrated Harris for her laughter,” says Selepak. “But she has only given one interview. People don’t really know her.”
James W. Davis, one of the most renowned experts on US politics and international relations, comes to a somewhat different assessment: “I think that Harris goes into the TV debate with a chance of a big win. But yes: she can also lose.”
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