Given all of this, perhaps American voters viewed the debate far differently than did the pundits. In this issues-versus-intangibles election, Harris’s answers may not have made voters any more comfortable with her domestic policies. Many commentators agreed that her answer to the debate’s first question, on inflation and the economy, was her weakest of the night. It began, “So, I was raised as a middle-class kid” and included little on how she would combat inflation; members of the Reuters focus group complained about her “vague” answers on economic topics. Trump constantly brought up illegal immigration, another topic on which Harris had little to say.

Similarly, the candidates’ foreign policy exchange may have done little to persuade voters of Harris’s aptitude.