Hey, everyone. I'm David Chalian, CNN's political director. And welcome to the CNN Political Briefing. Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump went head to head on the debate stage for the first time Tuesday night. For more than 90 minutes, they shared the stage. Harris tried to goad Trump with comments about his reputation with world leaders, his 2020 election loss and, of course, crowds at his rallies.

You will see during the course of his rallies, he talks about fictional characters like Hannibal Lecter. He will talk about windmills cause cancer. And what you will also notice is that people start leaving his rallies early out of exhaustion and boredom. And I will tell you, the one thing you will not hear him talk about is you.

And Donald Trump took the bait.

People don't leave my rallies. We have the biggest rallies, the most incredible rallies in the history of politics. That's because people want to take their country back. Our country is being lost. We're a failing nation, and it happened three and a half years ago. And what's going on here, you're going to end up in World War III, just to go into another subject. What they have done to our country by allowing these millions and millions of people...

In a CNN Instant poll of debate watchers, 67% said Harris won the debate. That is a complete reversal from June when that same share, 67%, said Trump won that debate against President Biden. Now, it remains to be seen whether this week's debate will have enough influence on voters to move the needle in this extremely tight presidential contest. This week, I'm joined by two guests, Karen Finney. She's a CNN political commentator. She was senior spokesperson for Hillary Clinton's 2016 presidential campaign. And Doug Heye, a Republican strategist. He most recently served as the deputy chief of staff to former House Majority Leader Eric Cantor. They both join me to discuss Tuesday night's faceoff and what these candidates should do next with the big debate behind them.

Karen, Doug, thank you so much for being here. Really appreciate it.

Great to be here.

I was eager to sit down with two practitioners now because when a huge setpiece like the debate gets cleared and the calendar moves forward and there's not another one yet put on the schedule for Harris and Trump, I sort of want to look at these next, you know, seven and a half weeks now and what each side needs to do out of the debate to sort of grind this out going forward. But let me first just get from each of you, if 67 million people tune in to an event like that, do you think that automatically means it will impact the state of the race, the trajectory of the race? Or no, fundamentally, it doesn't likely alter the dynamics of the race as we understand it.

I think it sort of hardens the race, and the result of the debate hardens the race, meaning if Kamala Harris had a bad night, it would have been a really bad night for her. But she did really well, acquitted herself and by and large, did what she needed to do. And so she told voters that she has real standing. Now, they still want to know more about her. They want to hear more about policy. And that's, I think, really the only place where she fell short. But she needed to look presidential and she sure did. With Donald Trump, as we've learned so many things that should matter, don't with him. In a way, it's funny, I had a briefing at one of the party committees yesterday and somebody said, anybody else who does any of these, any other Republican, they're disqualified immediately. For Trump, he is more Teflon than Ronald Reagan ever was. He had a bad night. And what would be disqualifying for anybody else just isn't for him. So the race is sort of where it is, but with Harris having that little bit of advantage coming out of it, not necessarily electoral at this point, but showing that she, in fact, is presidential and can stand toe to toe with him.

Karen, what do you think?

'So I'm going to disagree slightly. I think it's hard to say whether or not electorally it will have a major impact. But what it did do – I agree with Doug. I think she did exactly what she needed to do. She made it very clear she can go toe to toe with anyone because she actually did something no one has been able to do in quite some time. I mean, think about in the primaries when we were having this conversation about, you know, could they be tough enough? Who would be tough enough to take on Trump? She was more than tough enough and really also got out of the way. And let us see he's not the same guy he was in 2016. He's older. He's not as agile. Lots of rambling, lots of, you know, eating cats and dogs. I mean, when you're there and you're looking at that person and you're trying to say, is that someone who I want to bring back to lead the country? I think that it's a real reversal of where we were certainly in the last debate. So I think she did exactly what she needed to do. I think with Trump, she also reminded people that's what you're going to get. And that has been a challenge because as we've talked about over and over again, people have sort of forgotten what it was like four years ago. I do wish she would have painted a little bit more of a picture, because four years ago we were in our houses. It was Covid. People were literally falling off the economic cliff. Inflation was at 7%. We're now under 3%. You know, those sorts of things. For people who have not been paying attention to the election, who may have tuned in or who will consume it as content, like they'll see something on social media. That's what you want. You want people saying, well, let me take a look. And for those voters who were not not sure if they felt like they could trust her, because that's the thing with women in particular, can I trust her to be tough enough? I think they saw that she can. I would have liked her to have more of an opportunity to talk about specifics of their plans. That's one of the reasons why I think if we have a second debate it would be great to be able to drill down because again, contrast-wise, he didn't have specifics, and she actually has some.

'That also I think makes the economic data that comes in over the next six, eight weeks that much more important. You know, we continue to get good news, but often it's mixed. You know, we had a good jobs report, but the previous month revisions were terrible. We've seen inflation fall, but still some upticks on some things. If consumer confidence moves in that right direction, if gas prices really are below $3, that will help Harris considerably. And she needs that, especially because her economic policies are either ill-defined or just not defined, I should say, or defined by the Biden-Harris administration that still is viewed as looking at negatively. There's still time. It's a shrinking window. But those job announcements, inflation numbers, which are still going to come in between now and then, very important for Harris.

Let me press on that and challenge that. I struggle with this in my head all the time. Every bit of data suggests the economy is the most important issue for the American people. I get that. We know that voters don't consume these economic reports the way we do. And in terms of like – so it's an emotional experience about how they're feeling the economy. So your point about gas prices, I think that makes a lot of sense to me. And then I think back to 2022 guys when we were like the economy, the economy, the economy. And then I just wonder, is this – last week on the podcast I talked to Stuart Stevens and he was just like, the economy doesn't matter. And I don't know I would go that far. But I do wonder, for all the focus we put on the importance of what voters say is the most important issue, is that really how they're going to cast their vote?

No. And in 2022, I was not saying economy. I was saying it's reproductive freedom because two things: One, in our polling, we've almost gotten to the point where people know to just say the economy because it's just rote. But also when you dig down, "the economy" means different things for different people. This is part of why she's talking about housing costs and grocery bills and gas prices. Right? It's how you experience the economy, your pocketbook.

Don't you think she's talking about those things to get to Doug's point, to do the work, to narrow the gap with Trump on the economy in the polls, since so many people do sort of hang out there as their top issue, right?

Well, and you do have to talk about it, right? But I think you also have to – it's part of why, though, she also talked about the various reports that have indicated the tariffs that he wants to impose would actually increase prices for people. You know, people aren't just single issue voters. And what was interesting in 2022 that I think a lot of folks weren't catching, people were unhappy about the economy, but they didn't blame Joe Biden. They understood that there were a lot of different factors. And you when you kind of got under the hood of the data, you could see that, but the top lines weren't necessarily showing that. And so I think in this election, one of the things, part of why I think this message about joy and just the fact that she's bringing so much energy and positivity, Wall Street Journal had interesting reporting. People are feeling more hopeful. They are feeling more – not just about the economy, but about their futures. Elections are always about the future. We always say that. And it's true. And when people go into the polling booth, a lot of it is about how you feel, how you feel about the candidate, who you think is going to do the right thing, whether it's for your kids or for the future. It's more of an, I always think, an emotional experience than an intellectual one, because if it was intellectual, Hillary Clinton would've won, right? You could make the argument that certain people would have won because we could have made the intellectual argument. So I think you have to do both. I mean, you have to speak to the economy, but also speak to people's fears. Reproductive freedom – that is still a real fear for people.

Doug, the split screen on the debate, just to to pick up on Karen's point, her face and his face just next to each other for 90 minutes. And again, if 67 million people absorb some of that split screen, that also had sort of a future and a past contrast on display.

'No question. And that's, I think, the biggest difference between what we saw with the debate with President Biden. But, you know, as we look at these numbers and obviously it was a very large audience, you know, most people tune in to big events like that to see their team win. And so when you look at a lot of the polling afterwards, you know, the Harris supporters thought she was amazing. The Trump supporters either were sort of quiet, especially on Capitol Hill, or my man was great, he did everything right, you know, glorious leader-type stuff. So we're really talking about that sliver of voters that have held their nose to vote for Donald Trump before, which is why I think the economy is still extremely important here and haven't fully fleshed out who Kamala Harris is and what is she going to do on the economy. If we continue to get better news and she can put some meat on those bones, I think that benefits her, and it's where I think the joy sort of theme of the campaign over the past few weeks has, I think, been a bit misplaced because people see that on TV and then they go to the grocery store and they get mad. They go to buy a sandwich, and they get mad. They don't go to the movies with their family because of the prices of that. It's not inflation falling. That's a statistic that we talk about in Washington, D.C. and maybe that is transitory, but American voters don't use words like inflation or transitory. They say, do you know what I spent today? Do you know what this cost? And that's still very real in the country.

So I just want to push back a little bit because I think we tend to have conversations where we're talking about moderate voters, swing voters. But as Barack Obama proved, you can also realign the electorate. And part of the opportunity that I think Kamala Harris has, and it is very hard to do in seven weeks.

Yeah, I was about to say, Barack Obama was doing that for two years, basically.

Yeah. But we are seeing levels of enthusiasm and excitement among AAPI voters, critical in the state of Georgia, Latino voters, younger voters under 40, I would say, who part of the challenge – it's a two step process because the first part is you've got to convince them that their vote actually matters and that it's worth it to come out and vote because they're infrequent voters, or they might be first time voters. Then you've got to convince them that she's the person. That's where the energy, the excitement and the joy, though, I think actually matters because it gives the campaign – and, you know, you've heard David Plouffe talk about this a bit – multiple paths to 270. Looking at the data in the states to say, is there a different way to win Arizona, is there a slightly different way to win a state like Georgia? So we're not just dependent on that same sliver we're always going to. But can we actually – and there's a lot of work going on, we'll see. Seven weeks, it's not a lot. It's a long time in politics, and it's not a long time. But I just want us to remember there's a whole other portion of the potential electorate that we're also trying to go for.

It's a perfect place for us to pause and take a break because I want to come back and talk about that map and the path to 270. We'll be back with Karen Finney and Doug Heye in just a moment.

'Welcome back. We're here with CNN political commentator Karen Finney and Republican strategist Doug Heye. In the aftermath of Tuesday's debate, we're talking about the state of the Harris-Trump presidential race with just over 50 days to go. Doug, we were saying right before the break, Karen was talking about the various paths to 270 electoral votes for the candidates. And I do want to dig in to sort of where we are electorally on that. You know, when Biden was the candidate, it was just about that blue wall for him. Like he just needed to repeat Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin. We've obviously seen polling that makes Harris more competitive than Biden was against Trump in the Sunbelt as well. And yet I still think her most viable path to the presidency does go through that blue wall. And, quite frankly, the Harris-Walz campaign schedule on the whole would seem to suggest they think that as well.

Yeah, and look, I think everybody would agree. And when I say everybody, absolutely everybody would agree, that Pennsylvania is the most important state. You know that is, if not all the marbles, it's most of them. But she does have different paths and more past than Trump has. And that's not insignificant. And, you know, look, I'm biased being from North Carolina and having worked there, but she's there today doing two stops. And what I'm interested in sort of to what Karen was referring to –

For her first campaign stops after the debate. That's where she chose to go.

'So does she want to replicate the Obama model, which was successful in 2008, not successful in 2012, but very close both times? Or is she trying to expand it? So, as she's gone to some rural areas in Pennsylvania and in Georgia, if she's just going to go to the same places that Democrats always go to, Greensborough and Charlotte, which she's doing today, okay, I get it. But is she going to go to some of those more rural areas, go to Greenville instead of Greensboro, you know, go to Hickory instead of Charlotte? That tells me something. And then, you know, with younger voters and certainly with African-American voters, turning out those college students, but especially those students at HBCUs – in 2008, they were turnout machines for Obama. If you take Durham, North Carolina, Central, and I won't take a shot at Duke basketball, but North Carolina Central, much more important than Duke in this context for Obama. But Obama also had the two years to build that. He didn't have the seven weeks. So, my questions are, in that state, what is she trying to do, and how does she try and get there? And there is still time. But yeah, it's a ticking clock.

So, one quick thing to remind you: What did she spend the last year doing? HBCU tour. And then she did a, also did a college tour. So interestingly enough, while the media for the most part has not paid attention to her schedule over the last three and a half years, unless there was some gaffe, she has been, I mean, this will be, I believe, her 18th trip to North Carolina. And she has been to other parts of North Carolina. She has been to the HBCUs. Can they turn that into mobilization and votes?

And the administration also has, you know, Biden had been there a lot. Cabinet secretaries constantly. They've not lost sight of the state. But now it's very real.

And other states I don't – I mean, I love – my mom is from North Carolina, too, so I always go there.

But I'll tell you why I think North Carolina is so important. And I would tell you – I think one of the things, you're right, you know, if there was a Harris gaffe, then people would go and follow her on the road. But I think one of the other things that many people missed, unless you were watching her do all these events, especially over the course of the last, well, basically since the Dobbs decision, I would argue. But like over the last year, even more intensely and again, she was campaigning as the number two for most of it, obviously, not the nominee. If you had watched her, it would not have surprised you when she shot out a gun on July 21st, that she was a better political athlete than people had remembered, because you could see the conversion over time of her getting better at this because she had been out there. And I don't think that story was totally captured. I just want to say about North Carolina, first of all, in the spring, I remember talking to senior Biden officials who were arguing to me that they thought perhaps they had a better shot at North Carolina than at repeating Georgia, just in those two states. That was before the Biden debate and the whole debacle and everything. But just when they were like looking. And to me, given what you guys both – and I agree about Pennsylvania being the be all and end all of this – if she can flip North Carolina, I think that is an beatable roadblock to Donald Trump's path to 270.

'Potentially so, because that's where she's on offense, right? And, you know, one other thing I would say about the state, but also sort of more writ large is the group in North Carolina that I think really gets forgotten. We talked a lot about African-American voters in North Carolina for very good reason. That's I think North Carolina, not South Carolina, should have the first Democratic primary after Iowa, of course – is Hispanic voters. You know, they're they're significantly growing in North Carolina. They're growing nationally. It's a much more important base. And just as an example, 2016, I was home in Winston-Salem and the Andy Griffith Show was on, as it always is. And they talk about Siler City, which is a real town, not made up like Mayberry and so forth. And I had never been there. So I decided the next day I was going to drive to Siler City, and the body shop was a Hispanic-owned business there. The mercado, obviously Hispanic-owned business. I'm like, whoa, I did not expect this. And this town is so intertwined with the Andy Griffith Show that the actress who played Aunt Bee later moved there. She's buried there, like this is sacred Andy Griffith territory, which is something in North Carolina. He was a Democrat, by the way. And that's only increased, and that's increasing in so many small towns. You know, if you want to talk about places where there's meatpacking and meat processing, you know, that's a lot of jobs. That's a lot of Hispanic voters. Republicans, you know, top of ballot and down ballot, need to be investing resources there. Democrats certainly are.

'And I'll tell you, one of the challenges, I worked for a time on the 2022 Senate race. They left a lot on the table with Latino and African-American voters. So, it'll be interesting to see, again, can you turn that into actual turnout?

'So, guys, because you have both worked on huge national campaigns. You both have a ton of experience. Can you just take our listeners inside now? I'll start with you, Doug. If you're inside the Trump campaign, what do you now need to accomplish over the next 50-plus days? How do you get from here to there?

Well, first, I think we've seen his schedule somewhat limited. And the debate showed us why. Trump is better when he's scripted. He doesn't always follow that script, and he doesn't need to and at, you know, his advanced age probably can't, work as hard as Harris. So, he has to shore up those places where she's trying to break through that wall. And if he can do that and hold Pennsylvania, you know, which was very close last time as well, and he can win that, then I think his frame of reference is pretty good there.

But what's the how if he's outsourcing the ground game? So, how does he prevent the breakthrough?

'So, North Carolina will be well-funded because Michael Whatley, the RNC chair, is from there; the deputy chair is from there. So I'm not worried about funding in that state. But there are real questions about the Republican ground game nationally right now, and that's what – they need to do two things. One, try and limit Donald Trump's mistakes And by mistakes – and this is the weirdest thing I could ever say – I don't mean taking a 9/11 truther to Ground Zero, which he did yesterday, which is, you know, as appalling and shocking as as can be, if not unsurprising. That's not where voters are focused on. But if he has a moment where he looks all of 77, you know, that that really impacts him. So that's why he's –

78.

Sorry, 78. That's why he's not going to be as active on the trail. So then it's the ground game. And that's where they have to bring in money and pump it right back out into the states to make sure that votes are getting out, whether they're getting out in the mail, which Trump now supports, although North Carolina is on hold. I know Alabama just started today. But to drive that ground game, because the number one concern that I hear outside of, you know, your typical concerns about Trump are what's happening on the ground.

And, Karen, we do hear the Trump team and his allies are through, you know, traditional messaging processes, you know, sending mail to not necessarily traditional Republican voters to try and take some of the Democratic base voter and convince them that this is the time to come on over to him.

'Well, or to suppress. I mean, we're seeing, I've seen mailers in parts of Georgia that are meant to suppress because like, for example, in Georgia, when you talk about suburban voters, those are African-American voters. Those are also, you know, moderate white voters. So we've seen some suppressive efforts as well. So, I think the Harris campaign is thinking about several things. Number one, Democrats have a much stronger ground game. So it is a matter of continuing to knock on doors, make the phone calls, have the voter contact, turn this energy and enthusiasm. All these people that are signing up for volunteer shifts, put them right back out. And, you know, again, talking to voters, making the case.

Are you worried the Democrats think this is an easier battle than it may actually be?

No. And, you know, I still have the scar from 2016, you know, 44,000 votes.

I know you. I wasn't asking if you thought it was easier. I was asking if there's a concern that the party thinks this is an easier race.

No. And there is a real feeling of people are excited but very cautiously optimistic. We are very clear eyed about several things. Number one, again, this ground game, we have to turn that into actual votes. Number two, protecting the vote. We are seeing some voter suppressive efforts. You know, I am someone and there are others who are very concerned about what are we not seeing. We know now some of the things that Trump was doing in 2020. We know what he did in 2016. So be prepared on that front to protect the vote, to make sure people are able to register, vote, have that vote counted. And then the vice president herself and Tim Walz have to, I don't want to outwork the former president, but that really is it. Get out there. People need to keep seeing her, in part because it does stress the future versus the past, the fact that here is a vigorous woman who is going to work her heart out for you.

It's so interesting because it is almost counterintuitive from what she did on the debate stage, not that people didn't have a chance to see her. But she by being on offense and dominant, she actually made the debate about Donald Trump. If Trump were to be less dominant in the daily information flow to voters and she was more dominant, would that be against the grain of like what she was able to accomplish in the debate by bringing him front and forward for voters who are in that small swath of the middle?

But I would argue she did two things. She made it about him but also made it about the contrast. If this is him, this is who I am. I am calm. I'm thoughtful. I am rational, I am presidential. I have clear ideas and clear plans. And I will talk to you about them. This guy is a raving lunatic. We don't even know what he's talking about. The key thing right now is to make sure that the voters we need are hearing the message that they need to hear in order to make their decision from the messenger that will resonate with them the most in the channel – and I say that because we're talking a lot about what the candidates are doing, but we know so much of what an election is about, it's the mail. It's now social media, it's TV ads, it's interviews. It's exactly what we're doing here. It's seeing her. So, it's all of that and making sure that everything is firing on all cylinders. But the most important thing, too, again, is to make sure no one feels complacent. I mean, I was talking to a group of social media influencers and I said, look, I need you guys to make sure voters understand 44,000 votes. That's what Joe Biden was able to do. So don't tell me your vote doesn't matter. And that, I think, is one of the most important things, is the complacency, the frustration that people may have and getting them out to vote. That's the most important thing.

You just don't tell that to voters outside the seven states, right? No, I'm kidding.

No. Look, I want a landslide. I want a huge – I don't care where you are. I want your vote.

'I love that you both have mentioned mail. Mail is the most important, least sexy, least attention-getting mechanism in campaigns.

Because we don't get to see it in the press as much. Do you know what I'm saying? So, it's very hard to cover.

But this is, I mean, everybody has a mailbox, and everybody still gets hard mail. And, you know, we send less letters to each other. But campaigns and parties and outside groups are churning out that kind of information, not just daily, inundating people. And it's really important.

So, listeners, send me the mail pieces you're getting from the campaigns.

But the other thing is, Karen mentioned Tim Walz. We haven't used the words, I don't think, JD Vance. And that to me is also instructive of where this campaign is. This is Donald Trump versus Kamala Harris. And and Vance and Walz can do things on the margins. And they'll have a debate that we'll all overanalyze. But this is about those two people and those two people really only.

'Although one thing I would say that I think is a tactic we could think about and it was at one point going to be a strategy of the Trump campaign to sort of say, look, God forbid something happens to Joe Biden, you could have Kamala Harris. I think there's a real argument to be made, god forbid something happens to Donald Trump, JD Vance would be the president. Because you have heard people expressing real concern about his readiness to lead. It's one more piece of information about Donald Trump's decision-making capabilities. We know he's kind of rash. They say he doesn't prepare. He talked to his sons about the decision. He didn't really look at all the background. So, I think there's also an argument to say, what does that tell you about, you know, he's diminished a little bit. He's not the same guy as 2016. I think there's a whole other potential message that could be targeted to those people who are on the fence. It's you gotta create permission structures. Trump's trying to create permission structures for people to come his way. The Harris-Walz campaign has to create permission structures for voters who might say, I just don't know if Trump still got it. And that may mean they don't vote. They may not necessarily vote for her, but maybe they just don't feel like they can vote for him again.

Yeah. Folks are on the fence. To Doug's point, Trump being so locked in, I'm not sure anyone is on the fence about Donald Trump. I mean, I guess there are few, but it's a very small universe. I think you were thinking of people who are on the fence about Harris and perhaps maybe just like not engaging. And that's, you know –

They're on the fence about what to do.

That's right.

Well, Karen, Doug, thank you so much for your insights. Really appreciate it.

Thanks so much.

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