Who won the day? Harris

Harris won the day because she reached out to Republicans more successfully than Trump reached out to women.

Oct 17, 2024 - 11:00

Donald Trump, who has tried to position himself as women’s “protector” for weeks, certainly needs more of them: A new Marist poll this morning had Harris leading Trump by 15 points with likely women voters, while Trump only leads by 6 points among likely male voters.

But in a Fox News town hall in Georgia with an all-female audience — taped on Tuesday but airing Wednesday, driving the day’s headlines — Trump inexplicably declared himself “the father of IVF.” At the same time, he said that Sen. Katie Britt of Alabama — “just a fantastically attractive person,” he said — explained to him the process as he acknowledged he “didn’t even know” there were embryos involved. On top of that, it appeared Trump was preaching to the choir: CNN reported that his town hall was packed with his own supporters.

Harris, meanwhile, spent the day working to expand her own coalition. Not only did she rally in Bucks County, Pennsylvania, with Republican surrogates like former Georgia Lt. Gov. Geoff Duncan, she also engaged in an aggressive sit down with Fox News, disarming a talking point that she doesn’t participate in such high-stakes media hits. (Brit Hume, the longtime conservative pundit, conceded that her appearance was “combative and energetic.”)

Harris praised her interlocutor, Bret Baier, as a “serious journalist,” a contrast from Trump saying Fox News was “owned” by her spokesperson Ian Sams. And she took a step to defuse last week’s self-own that her presidency would not be much different that Joe Biden’s.

“My presidency would not be a continuation of Joe Biden’s presidency,” she told Baier.

Harris survived the interview with no apparent gaffes — going on offense on a day Trump seemed mired in a defensive crouch.

Doing themselves no favors, Sen. JD Vance, Trump’s running mate, indulged the lie that Trump won in 2020. And Trump closed the day at a Univision forum by repeating falsehoods about Haitians eating pets in Springfield, Ohio, while promising to visit the safe red state down the homestretch.

We ask ourselves every night: Who won the day? Now we’ll tell you — every weekday. Yesterday it was Harris.