PHILADELPHIA (KYW Newsradio) — Many have long waited for Tuesday’s presidential debate in Philadelphia between Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump, but few have prepared like Kelly Dittmar, Director of Research at the Center for American Women and Politics at Rutgers University.
While voters hope to hear both candidates provide some substance to their stances and policies to get behind, Dittmar has prepared an analysis looking at how intersections of race and gender are influencing the race and American politics as a whole.
“The public has expectations of how gendered interaction should occur, right? Do they think that bullying a woman is worse? Does it come across as more negative and more inappropriate, based on our kind of historical ideas about chivalry and respect?” Dittmar asks.
In the case of Harris and Trump, she says the latter’s barbs may be perceived differently given the one who’s on the receiving end is no longer President Joe Biden.
However, given societal pressures placed on women, Dittmar says Harris should not match Trump’s energy in those discussions.
“In the case of her, specifically, you have the additional layers of intersectional biases of angry Black women, and so if she responds in a way that is particularly aggressive to match him does it evoke a different response and evaluation by voters than even Trump's aggression?“ she says.
Where Dittmar says Harris could see success is in pulling from her prosecutor roots, and the time she took the stage Vice President Mike Pence for a debate in 2020.
“It was very calm. It was very slow, the tone was level, and that is intentional,” she said. “And so you will likely see her be both prepared to do that and, of course, experienced in doing that against somebody who's going to try to goad her to react in a highly emotional way.”
Dittmar says the moderators also have a responsibility to be as balanced as possible, and that voters should track the questions asked, as well as the ones that are not — noting the substance, and to whom specific questions are directed.
The debate is tomorrow night at 9 p.m. and will last 90 minutes with two commercial breaks. You can listen to the whole thing live on KYW Newsradio.