Kamala Harris won the first post-primary debate of the 2024 presidential campaign with a defense of free and fair elections that distinguished her as something Donald Trump will never be: a sincere and faithful believer in the promise of American democracy.

That is the baseline requirement facing any serious contender for the nation’s highest job. And Harris met it, masterfully.

But her victory was not just rooted in the vice president’s argument for herself. It was also rooted in her exposure of her rival as a candidate whose antidemocratic inclinations are fully disqualifying.

Long before the two candidates took the debate stage in Philadelphia on Tuesday night, Trump—who sought in 2020 to overturn the results of an election that he lost by 7 million votes—had proven himself to be an autocrat determined to sacrifice democracy on the altar of his own ambition.

Trump’s most ardent critics, including the bipartisan majority of members of the US House of Representatives who impeached him for inciting the January 6 assault on the Capitol, know this. So, too, do the members of the bipartisan majority of US senators who voted to convict him for his anti-democratic high crimes and misdemeanors. But for voters, be they Democrats or Republicans, independents or potential third-party supporters, the debate was a chance to see Trump’s disdain for democracy up close. And he repeatedly made the case against his own candidacy, loudly telegraphing his continued refusal to accept election results in the past, his readiness to reject the results of this year’s contest, and his determination to use the presidency—should he ever again obtain it —to warp the governance of the United States to favor himself and his partisan allies.

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September 2024 Issue

Moderator David Muir asked the essential question midway through Tuesday night’s debate on ABC. “Mr. President,” Muir said, “for three and a half years after you lost the 2020 election you repeatedly falsely claimed that you won, many times saying you won in a landslide. In the past couple of weeks leading up to this debate, you have said, quote, ‘you lost by a whisker,’ that you, quote, ‘didn’t quite make it,’ that you ‘came up a little bit short.’ Are you now acknowledging that you lost in 2020?”

Muir gave Trump a chance to turn the page. But the former president absolutely refused to do so.

“No, I don’t acknowledge that at all,” said Trump, who claimed that his comment about losing “by a whisker” was “said sarcastically.” Trump then returned to the big lie about election fraud that never occurred. “I got almost 75 million votes—the most votes any sitting president has ever gotten. I was told if I got 63 [million], which was what I got in 2016, ‘you can’t be beaten,’” he said, before claiming that his defeat resulted from a “fraudulent” vote count. What he did not say, of course, was that federal watchdogs, state and local election officials, and dozens of judges have determined that Joe Biden gained 81 million votes and won the Electoral College by a 306-232 margin.

Without proof or credibility, Trump ranted, “Our elections are bad. And a lot of these illegal immigrants coming in, they’re trying to get them to vote. They can’t even speak English. They don’t even know what country they’re in practically. And these people are trying to get them to vote. And that’s why they’re allowing them to come into our country.” He lied about the courtroom failures of his challenges to the 2020 results, claiming, “No judge looked at it,” when, in fact, dozens had done just that. Instead of accepting the reality that his arguments failed, again and again and again, he asserted that his challenges to the results lost on “a technicality.”

Trump did not stop there. Raving ever more feverishly, the defeated former president announced, “That’s how we lost. If you look at the facts, and I’d love to have you—you’ll do a special on it. I’ll show you Georgia and I’ll show you Wisconsin and I’ll show you Pennsylvania and I’ll show you—we have so many facts and statistics. But you know what? That doesn’t matter. Because we have to solve the problem that we have right now. That’s old news. And the problem that we have right now is we have a nation in decline, and they have put it into decline. We have a nation that is dying, David.”

Muir did not take the bait. Instead, he turned to Harris and said, “You heard the president there tonight… he still believes he did not lose the election that was won by President Biden and yourself. But I do want to ask you about something that’s come up in the last couple of days. This was a post from President Trump about this upcoming election just weeks away. He said, ‘When I win, those people who cheated,’ and then he lists donors, voters, election officials, he says ‘will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law, which will include long-term prison sentences.’ One of your campaign’s top lawyers responded saying, ‘We won’t let Donald Trump intimidate us. We won’t let him suppress the vote.’ Is that what you believe he’s trying to do here?”

Harris was ready for this question.

“Donald Trump was fired by 81 million people. So, let’s be clear about that. And clearly, he is having a very difficult time processing that. But we cannot afford to have a president of the United States who attempts, as he did in the past to upend the will of the voters in a free and fair election,” she said. “And I’m going to tell you that I have traveled the world as vice president of the United States, and world leaders are laughing at Donald Trump.”

Harris then turned toward Trump and said, “I have talked with military leaders, some of whom worked with you, and they say you’re a disgrace. And when you then talk in this way in a presidential debate and deny what over and over again are court cases you have lost, because you did in fact lose that election.” Pivoting back toward the camera, and the American people, she concluded, “It leads one to believe that perhaps we do not have in the candidate to my right the temperament or the ability to not be confused about fact. That’s deeply troubling. And the American people deserve better.”

That was as devastating a takedown as any in the 64-year history of American presidential debates.

The defense of American democracy by Harris—in contrast to its rejection by Trump—was not her only strong suit in the debate. The Democrat’s advocacy for abortion rights was also strikingly powerful. Her argument that “Donald Trump has no plan for you,” coupled with a critique of his support for tax cuts for the rich, went a long way toward reframing the discussion of the economic issues that are central to this year’s campaign. Her pointed responses to the multiply convicted Republican’s wildly inaccurate claims about crime, and her searing assessment of his record of racial incitement, contributed to the overall impression of Harris as the only adult on the stage.

After Trump repeated the vile lie that immigrants in Ohio were eating the pets of their neighbors, Harris dealt a crushing blow, saying, “Talk about extreme. This is, I think, one of the reasons why in this election I actually have the endorsement of 200 Republicans who have formerly worked with President Bush, Mitt Romney, and John McCain—including the endorsement of former vice president Dick Cheney and Congress member Liz Cheney. And if you want to really know the inside track on who the former president is, if he didn’t make it clear already, just ask people who have worked with him. His former chief of staff, a four-star general, has said he has contempt for the Constitution of the United States. His former national security adviser has said he is dangerous and unfit. His former secretary of defense has said the nation, the republic would never survive another Trump term. And when we listen to this kind of rhetoric, when the issues that affect the American people are not being addressed, I think the choice is clear in this election.”

She was not alone in that view. Politico determined, “Harris won the debate—and it wasn’t close.” A CNN poll found that 63 percent of those who watched the debate said Harris prevailed over Trump.

And rightly so. Trump’s own words, including his celebration of Hungarian strongman Viktor Orbán, revealed his authoritarian bent—as did his refusal to take any responsibility for the chaos that extended from his efforts to overturn the election results of 2020. Recalling the crisis that Trump created, Harris concluded with an invitation to wavering voters: “If that was a bridge too far for you, well, there is a place in our campaign for you. To stand for country. To stand for our democracy. To stand for rule of law. And to end the chaos. And to end the approach that is about attacking the foundations of our democracy ‘cause you don’t like the outcome. And be clear on that point. Donald Trump, the candidate, has said in this election that there will be a bloodbath, if [the] outcome of this election is not to his liking. Let’s turn the page on this. Let’s not go back. Let’s chart a course for the future and not go backwards to the past.”