Takeaways from Pence-Harris debate

Vice-President Mike Pence and California Senator Kamala Harris met for the first and only vice-presidential debate on Wednesday night in Salt Lake City, Utah.

The night unfolded civilly, featuring barely any of the rampant interruptions and rancour that had characterised the first presidential debate between US President Donald Trump and Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden last week.

Here are some takeaways from Wednesday's debate.

1 CORONAVIRUS IS TRUMP'S WEAK SPOT

The Trump administration's handling of the coronavirus pandemic - which has infected more than 7.5 million Americans and killed over 210,000 of them - was fuel for the Democrats' sharpest criticism of the night.

One in five businesses closed, front-line employees were "treated like sacrificial workers", and 30 million people had to file for unemployment in the last several months, said Ms Harris.

She called the Trump administration's response "the greatest failure of any administration in the history of our country", accusing it of covering up the pandemic and arguing that it still did not have a plan.

Mr Pence, who heads the White House's coronavirus task force, was asked why the United States' death toll as a percentage of its population was higher than almost every other wealthy country.

He replied that Mr Trump's ban on travellers from China bought time for a national mobilisation of resources to combat the outbreak, without which even more lives would have been lost.


2 CHINA REPEATEDLY USED AS A BOGEYMAN

The Trump campaign has repeatedly tried to paint Mr Biden as soft on China, and Wednesday was no exception.

Mr Pence repeatedly called Mr Biden a "cheerleader for China" and said that the Democrat would repeal tariffs on Chinese goods if elected.

Ms Harris said Mr Trump had lost his trade war with China, while Mr Pence replied that Mr Biden never fought it.

Asked how he would describe America's fundamental relationship with China, Mr Pence said that China was to blame for the coronavirus.

Asked the same question, Ms Harris pivoted to arguing that America's standing in the world had diminished under Mr Trump's presidency, adding that Mr Biden wanted to restore American leadership and alliances.

"Leaders of all of our formerly allied countries have now decided that they hold in greater esteem and respect Xi Jinping, the head of the Chinese Communist Party, than they do Donald Trump," said Ms Harris, citing a survey by the Pew Research Centre.


3 A MOMENTARY RETURN TO A PRE-TRUMP DEMOCRACY

There were minimal interruptions in Wednesday's debate. Mr Pence and Ms Harris mostly let each other finish their sentences. They engaged with most of the moderator's questions - even if they did not answer them - and had actual discussions about policy proposals and track records.

That made the debate a far cry from last week's verbal dust-up between Mr Trump and Mr Biden. Political observers noted that it felt like a brief return to the norms of civility flouted by Mr Trump and, to a lesser extent, his political opponents.

Mr Pence's calmer demeanour, in contrast to that of his running mate, could very well calm voters who are skittish about Mr Trump's temperament.


4 WHAT WENT UNSAID

The points that each candidate insisted on pressing home, and the questions that they dodged over the course of the night, were revealing.

Mr Pence repeatedly insisted that Mr Biden would ban fracking - drilling down into the earth to extract oil or natural gas - and raise taxes, forcing Ms Harris to stress more than once that he would not.

A belief among voters that Mr Biden would ban fracking, which is a major industry in the swing state of Pennsylvania, may hurt his chances of victory there.

Ms Harris, on her part, evaded a question on whether the Democrats would pack the Supreme Court - that is, increase the number of seats from the current nine - in a bid to dilute the expected conservative majority.

Join ST's Telegram channel and get the latest breaking news delivered to you.

A version of this article appeared in the print edition of The Straits Times on October 09, 2020, with the headline Takeaways from Pence-Harris debate. Subscribe