Vice-presidential debates don’t matter much, and I doubt this one will either — but Mike Pence completely dominated the debate, both on substance and style. Harris seemed to have a thin package of talking points focused on COVID and on Trump’s personality, bringing up the greatest hits like re-litigating Trump’s response to Charlottesville more than three years ago, but Pence went after Harris in detail about matters of huge importance. This is probably the first time anyone has managed to clearly emphasize to the American people the fact that Democrats are actively considering packing the Supreme Court for no other reason than that they have lost so many elections that the Court is poised to have six conservatives serving at once because Republican presidents will have filled 15 out of the last 19 seats.
Harris’s demeanor — smirking and smiling broadly when she had no riposte to Pence’s calmly articulated but hard-hitting points — could not have helped her. Harris had lots of camera time during the Democratic primary season and was such a disaster that she was at 3 percent in the polls when she dropped out. She is an inept debater.