Trump somehow failed to meet Republicans’ low debate expectations

Former President Donald Trump sounded out of his element during Tuesday night’s debate against Vice President Kamala Harris, a candidate who can speak complete sentences and make thought-out points.
Both things he struggled with as he failed to meet the very low standard Republicans have set for their candidate.
Harris was able to capitalize on Trump’s flustered nature (with some help from the moderators), putting him on the defensive early on issues of abortion, the economy, the 2020 election and his own criminal cases.
The biggest takeaway for me is that the Republicans are fighting this campaign with their hands tied behind their back because of their nomination of Trump.
A better politician could have competently countered Harris’ attacks; there is plenty there to criticize. But Trump is not a good politician, so Republicans are stuck with their worst possible electoral option leading the party. Tuesday’s debate made that clear.
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At this point, Trump is a known quantity, and his brash nature is baked into our assessments of how he is doing as a candidate. The American people have been subjected to nearly a decade of Trump’s defects in the public light. At this point, there is little that can faze them. We don’t expect much from him.
This was never more true than during his first debate against President Joe Biden, where by simply standing there and keeping his mouth shut Trump appeared arguably the most presidential he ever has, particularly in comparison to Biden’s babbling. 
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Harris, on the other hand, is a candidate most Americans might still know little about – and she hasn’t done herself any favors by keeping her young presidential campaign mysterious policywise. 
For these reasons, the bar was much higher for Harris to have a good debate, not in the eyes of the news media (who will surely flock to defend her), but in the eyes of the public. Voters had expected much more from her. She pulled it off, largely, because of how big of a failure Trump was.
Amid his long history of misogyny, outright lying and undermining public faith in elections, anyone still willing to vote for Trump is already ignoring a lot – or at least rationalizing it. This allows them to do the exact same thing with most anything Trump says or does on the debate stage.
Trump gets credit if he just doesn’t self-destruct on stage.
When the standard for a candidate to succeed is simply standing there and shutting up, it gives his opponent very little room to actually win a debate. Somehow, Trump still managed to lose.
When the country needed to see Trump come off as presidential, he failed to do so. Instead, his most memorable moments of the debate was discussing the lie that immigrants are eating household pets.
At every chance Trump had to actually discuss his policy position on a topic, he decided to talk in circles back to the state of the Biden administration. At some point he has to answer for himself, rather than just deflect to his opponent.
Harris had a rather bland showing at the debate, successfully deflecting attacks back toward Trump (sometimes even truthfully), and shockingly actually speaking to some policy points.
Trump struggled to articulate his positions to somebody like me, a conservative who is more sympathetic to some of his policy tendencies.
Trump’s only rebuttal to pretty much any of Harris’ attacks was to hit her on the border. While the Biden administration’s handling of the border has been disastrous, it isn’t the answer to all of Trump’s problems. He managed to deflect questions on the economy, the attack on the U.S. Capitol in 2021 and many other topics back to immigration. Deflecting questions that the American people want answers from Trump is far from a victory.
Harris did her own fair share of deflection on questions on late-term abortion and inflation, but she maneuvered these spaces far better than Trump.
I would also be remiss if I didn’t mention that Trump had the disadvantage of not just debating Harris ‒ but also the moderators. I’m not against moderators calling out lies from a candidate, as they did several times to Trump. But they failed to catch several from Harris ‒ particularly regarding Trump’s stated position on a national abortion ban, his comments following the tragedy in Charlottesville, Virginia, and his role involving Project 2025.
There’s no doubt that these interruptions contributed to Trump’s flustered tone throughout the last hour of the debate, but Harris competently countered his points.
Trump sounded out of his element going back to debating opponents capable of hitting back. It was Trump’s responsibility to make Harris defend her ridiculous positions, not that of the moderators, and he failed to do so. And he continued to fail at being a good representative for conservatives.
Dace Potas is an opinion columnist for USA TODAY and a graduate of DePaul University with a degree in political science.