Kamala Harris won.
She didn’t need ABC’s help.
In a debate that begged for fair referees, the vice president remained calm on a night when a bombastic former President Donald Trump turned every question into a tirade.
Harris took the fight to Trump from the first moment. She went to him and insisted on shaking hands in their first face-to-face meeting. He did, but then didn’t look at her again until he gave her a side-eye nearly an hour into the debate.
By then, ABC moderators Linzey Davis and David Muir had fact-checked him a half-dozen times, almost always to her advantage.
It was as if Davis and Muir never watch anything but ABC.
They completely dismissed the possibility as foolish flapdoodle that the former president (1) might feel cheated out of the 2020 election, (2) might not have meant white supremacists in Charlottesville are actually “honorable people,” (3) that the noxious Project 2025 was really cooked up for a different Republican candidate, or that (4) somebody in Ohio might actually have eaten somebody else’s cat.
Harris didn’t help herself with a series of smirks and glares that detracted from her defense. But Trump was shouting his usual rambling attacks about “World War III,” calling Harris and her father Marxists and condescendingly calling President Joe Biden “her boss.”
If you listened on audio, this debate was as one-sided for Harris as the Dallas Cowboys’ first half against the Cleveland Browns.
But if you watched, Harris’ double-takes when Trump was talking seemed as practiced and plastic as candidate Al Gore’s signs against George W. Bush in 2000, or Hillary Clinton’s winces and frowns against Trump in 2016.
Trump had a plastic moment of his own, when Harris simply laughed quietly to herself and Trump thundered, “I’m talking now!” and added the needle, “Does that sound familiar?”
Before the night, Trump was expected to focus on immigration and fracking, which apparently is the second most important topic in western Pennsylvania behind who should play quarterback for the Steelers.
He criticized Harris’ reversal of position, but seemed to just holler “Fracking!” like “communism!” and “World War III!” and “Joe Biden!”
Harris was expected to focus on abortion. She did.
However, Trump kept pivoting to student loans, as if paying back a loan is just as emotional. Maybe it is for him.
It has now been 24 years since Trump first ran for president as a Reform Party candidate, and 12 years since an angry Trump saw Barack Obama re-elected and filed the very next day to register “Make America Great Again.”
Win or lose, this may have been his last night on a debate stage.
He made the most of it, packing every response with all the anger and resentment of 24 years, shouting at the country one more time that everybody should see things his way.
Harris may see 24 years ahead of her, helping shape a nation.
But it will be a long time before anyone agrees to another debate on ABC.
If you want to know who had the best night, the answer is definitely Joe Biden.