Harris basically spent the first 15 minutes trying to break Trump’s concentration and get him to start lashing out emotionally. Trump had a brief edge there. Once she got him that was it though, by the time other areas he was strong at or points Harris was sidestepping came up it was too late, Trump was thinking with his mashed potatoes instead of his notes.

That’s basically the game here. Get Trump to act stupid and let him hang his own noose, side step the controversial positions or stuff Harris changed her mind on. Trump needed to keep his cool and play to his strengths, sidestep his faults(he did this ok for Abortion, but after that it crumbled) and tear into economy issues and Harris’s flipflops, which he did initially (I will say he never sounded ‘Old’ in the way Biden did), but once that was gone he went full Weird and lost it, just could not get back on track.

It’s inherently a bit of a gamble especially since Trump’s handlers know the game and he’ll know it today once he’s sobered up and calmed down. If Trump held on long enough Harris could have been in trouble with a couple issues, Harris is inherently on the backfoot due to such a short campaign season and stuff like having to change her policies to appeal nationally can’t be done gradually the way Hillary did it. There’s an inherent vulnerability there that someone like Niki Haley or another democrat would utterly maul her on. Trump can too, if, if he keeps his cool. He didn’t.

Walz doesn’t have the same weaknesses either. Neither does JD, but that’s just mostly going to come down to competency and normalness so Walz is walking in with an edge. (If it was Vance vs Harris and Trump vs Walz there might be a problem for the democrats, that configuration doesn’t play to their strengths)