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Kamala
Harris
speaks
on the
stage in
a gym,
with a
crowd
surrounding
her and
a large
American
flag on
the wall
in the
background.
Roughly
95
percent
of the
television
ads run
by
Kamala
Harris,
Donald
J. Trump
and
their
leading
super
PAC
allies
since
she
entered
the race
have
focused
on
her.Credit...Erin
Schaff/The
New York
Times |
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How the
fight to
define
Kamala
Harris
will
shape
next
week’s
debate
Shane
Goldmacher
nyt.com
~3
minutes
Kamala
Harris
speaks
on the
stage in
a gym,
with a
crowd
surrounding
her and
a large
American
flag on
the wall
in the
background.
Roughly
95
percent
of the
television
ads run
by
Kamala
Harris,
Donald
J. Trump
and
their
leading
super
PAC
allies
since
she
entered
the race
have
focused
on
her.Credit...Erin
Schaff/The
New York
Times
The
battle
over who
Ms.
Harris
is — and
what she
stands
for —
will
take
center
stage on
Tuesday
when she
and
Donald
Trump
debate
for the
first
time.
For
eight
years,
Donald
J. Trump
has
singularly
dominated
the
American
political
landscape.
But as
he
prepares
to
debate
Vice
President
Kamala
Harris
for the
first
time
next
week,
the
former
president
is
facing a
rare
moment
when the
spotlight
will be
far more
on his
opponent
than on
him.
The
race to
define
Ms.
Harris
has
emerged
as a
central
political
battleground
of the
2024
contest
since
her
surprise
entry
replacing
President
Biden in
July.
Voter
sentiments
about
Mr.
Trump
have
hardened
after a
decade
in the
public
eye.
Those
sentiments
have
been
effectively
frozen
even
after
impeachments,
indictments,
a felony
conviction
and an
assassination
attempt.
In
comparison,
Ms.
Harris’s
support
has been
volatile.
Voter
views of
the vice
president
have
improved
suddenly
and
sharply
in the
nearly
seven
weeks of
her
candidacy,
strengthening
her
standing
against
Mr.
Trump.
For
Ms.
Harris,
the
debate
on
Tuesday
is her
best
chance
to
solidify
those
gains.
For Mr.
Trump,
it is
his
greatest
opportunity
to
undercut
or
reverse
them.
The
event
will be
Mr.
Trump’s
seventh
time
taking
the
stage in
a
general-election
presidential
debate —
the most
of any
candidate
in the
modern
era —
while it
will be
Ms.
Harris’s
debut.
Strategists
allied
with
each
campaign
said
that
means
there is
little
new
information
to be
gleaned
about
him and
much for
voters
to learn
about
her.
“Voters
decided
on
Donald
Trump in
2016 and
have not
changed
their
mind,”
said
Robert
Blizzard,
a
veteran
Republican
pollster.
“The
difference
is
voters
have
started
to
change
their
minds on
Kamala
Harris.”
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