Kamala Harris’ first statewide general election debate started with a bang. Her Republican attorney general rival Steve Cooley, blasting her decision not to seek the death penalty for a man who fatally shot a San Francisco police officer, announced in his opening statement that the officer’s widow, mother and sister — who all supported him — were in the room.
Harris barely batted an eye. She declared that her opposition to capital punishment didn’t mean she would stop fighting to uphold death sentences, and quickly pivoted to other issues like recidivism — without ever directly addressing the San Francisco case.
“Steve, I think that you really should not go below the dignity of this debate or the office we seek,” she told Cooley at the 2010 forum.
Almost a decade later, that experience staying composed during a contentious fight could come in handy as Harris goes up against nine other Democratic presidential contenders Thursday night in the highest-stakes debate of her political career.
To get a sense of what to expect, we looked back at more than five hours of Harris’ radio and television debates for her campaigns for San Francisco district attorney, California attorney general and U.S. Senate over the last 16 years.
The takeaways: Harris is almost universally cool and collected, staying unruffled even in the face of some tough attacks. She often responds to criticism with broadsides against her rivals. She’s effective at deflecting away from uncomfortable topics, dodging questions that don’t play to her strengths. And while she’s clear and coherent in her answers, she sometimes comes off as more wooden than in other settings.
“I expect she’ll distinguish herself out of the herd,” Cooley, the former Los Angeles district attorney, predicted in an interview this week. “She’s always very well prepared, and she’ll have thought through what she needs to do to have a memorable or dramatic moment.”
Thursday’s debate will be different from any event Harris has competed in before, with 10 contenders vying for the spotlight. Harris will face off with other top-tier candidates like former Vice President Joe Biden and Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, who both have far more experience debating on the national stage. And while she’s won plaudits for her Senate grilling of Trump administration officials, she won’t have much of an opportunity for those kinds of cross-examinations with 10 minutes or less of speaking time.
The forum could get testy, as multiple candidates — including Harris — have criticized Biden in recent weeks for his comments about working across the aisle with segregationist senators. Still, Harris seems likely to reserve her harshest attacks for someone not on the stage: President Trump.
One of the biggest lessons that Harris has seemed to learn from her debates is that the best defense is a good offense. In the 2003 radio debate for her first race for San Francisco district attorney, Harris was asked about violating campaign finance spending limits. She acknowledged she made a mistake before shifting to her opponent, incumbent Terence Hallinan.
“Terence blames everybody for his failures instead of taking responsibility,” she said. “I think taking responsibility is a sign of leadership.”
Even in her 2016 Senate general election debate against fellow Democratic Rep. Loretta Sanchez, which Harris entered as a strong frontrunner, she stayed on the offense for nearly the entire hour. Unlike some leading candidates who try to stay above the fray, Harris bashed Sanchez for missing votes, taking money from for-profit colleges, and “playing into the hands of ISIS” by making anti-Muslim statements. During Sanchez’s animated answers, Harris barely glanced at her rival, standing still, looking down and taking notes.
Still, Harris’ most memorable and viral response came when she let that composure break. At the end of the debate, Sanchez dabbed — posing with her head dipped and arm stretched out in a gesture of triumph — while Harris’ eyebrows rose in surprise and she pressed her lips together.
“So, there’s a clear difference between the candidates in this race,” Harris said with a big laugh. Social media lit up with comments about her “shade,” and now a clip of the moment adorns the error page of her presidential campaign website.
“It was a very human reaction,” said Raphael Sonenshein, the executive director of the Pat Brown Institute for Public Affairs at Cal State Los Angeles, who was a panelist asking questions that night. “For a lot of people, that moment kind of made the debate.”
Former aides say Harris — who was on the debate team as a Howard University undergrad — studies extensively for debates, working through copious possible questions and responses.
“Preparation may as well be her middle name,” said Brian Brokaw, a strategist who worked on her past state campaigns.
Still, some of her statistics-laden answers at past debates can come across as over-rehearsed, and a pithy, provocative answer could help candidates stand out more than a well-composed but unsurprising one. Harris has also struggled to keep her responses within time limits: In one 2016 primary forum, for example, she had 10 of her 11 answers cut off by the moderator, dampening her impact.
One theme Harris returned to again and again is her courtroom record, referring to herself as a “career prosecutor” in most of her debates over the years.
“She always pointed out that she was the person who had been in the trenches prosecuting cases,” remembered Bill Fazio, one of Harris’ opponents in the 2003 district attorney election, who called her a skilled debater.
Harris has used that experience in framing other issues beyond the criminal justice system, such as immigration.
“I’ve personally prosecuted everything from low level offenses to homicides,” Harris declared in one Senate debate. “I have seen some of the worst crimes, some of the worst of criminals. An undocumented immigrant is not a criminal, and we have to correct course on this conversation in our country.”
Thursday’s debate comes at a time when Harris has stalled in the polls and is looking for a breakout moment. Her supporters are aware of the high stakes — but are hardly lowering expectations. Her campaign chair and sister Maya Harris tweeted earlier this month that Harris would “dominate the stage.”
“The debates are going to be an inflection point,” predicted David McCuan, a politics professor at Sonoma State University. “Kamala Harris is really going to have to break out and draw contrasts with the other candidates, and it could provide an opportunity for the momentum she really needs.”
