After an election, there is no shortage of pundits weighing in about what pivotal moments changed the trajectory of the outcome. In 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic undoubtedly changed the course of the election by not only tanking the thriving Trump economy but also paving the way for the use of mass mail-in voting. In 2024, depending on how things turn out, one of two events will cited as the moment one candidate's campaign doomed itself.
If Kamala Harris wins
This one is easy. If Harris somehow emerges as the victor in the presidential election, Donald Trump's decision to debate Joe Biden at the end of June will look like a pivotal mistake.
Biden's cognitive decline, while hardly a secret, was something the mainstream media largely dismissed, and Trump was, without a doubt, extremely eager to get on the debate stage and show the country just how shot Biden's mind really is. He succeeded in doing so after mere seconds, and that debate set off a series of events that paved the way for the Democrats to boot Biden from the ballot and replace him Harris.
Granted, no one actually likes Harris, but electing a woman of color as president gives the identity-obsessed left a warm, tingly feeling up their legs. The enthusiasm behind her campaign, while undoubtedly superficial, has already shown to make the race far more competitive.
Even Kamala's biggest cheerleaders know that the honeymoon will end eventually, but the tightening of the race took Trump's expanded map and gave him an election where he can't afford to make many mistakes. If Kamala wins, Trump's decision to debate Biden so early will look like the moment he lost the election that he was on track to win handily.
Biden may have been forced off the ticket eventually, perhaps after the convention, which would have put the Democrats in a major time crunch and legal fiasco to get him replaced.
Related: Harris Is Scared, and Even Her Biggest Defenders Know It
If Donald Trump wins
Harris is smartly avoiding situations she can't control in favor of scripted campaign moments, and that is working for her right now, but even her biggest cheerleaders know she can't run away from answering questions forever. Perhaps the biggest question she's not answering right now is why she chose Tim Walz as her running mate. The rollout of putting him on the ticket has been marred by a flurry of damaging stories about his record, and his military record has been dogged by accusations of stolen valor. One can't help but wonder if Harris did any vetting at all.
For much of the Harris veepstakes, the narrative was that she was going to pick a battleground state "moderate" Democrat who could help her win the state. Walz did not fit that bill. While it's debatable whether picking Josh Shapiro would have taken Pennsylvania out of Trump's reach, Shapiro's popularity there would have no doubt helped. If she loses Pennsylvania, her path to 270 almost vanishes, and her selection of Walz will look like the moment she doomed her campaign.
"Minnesota is likely not going to be competitive this fall. No Republican nominee for president has carried the state since 1972 – it’s Democrats’ longest presidential winning streak (outside of Washington, DC). And polling in the North Star State since Harris entered the race has shown that the streak is likely to continue," writes CNN's Harry Enten. "Pennsylvania, on the other hand, is almost certainly a must-win state for Harris if she wants to be president. In fact, it is probably the most important swing state this cycle, and the polling there has been very tight."
Shapiro currently holds a 61% favorable rating in Pennsylvania and outperformed Biden’s 2020 baseline by 14 points in 2022.
Whether that would have been enough to propel a Harris-Shapiro ticket in Pennsylvania this fall is a question mark, though political science literature suggests it very well could have.
Shapiro's reputation as a moderate certainly could have helped Harris with swing voters, whereas, Enten notes, Walz won't. "If Harris ends up losing Pennsylvania and the election by a small margin, it will be one of history’s great 'what-ifs.'"
