In the News
September 6, 2024
This article by Emma Cordover was published in the newsletter, Politico Women Rule. Published ahead of the 2024 Presidential Debate, it cites RepresentWomen's Cynthia Richie Terrell.
Read the excerpt below.
The last time the American people saw Harris on the debate stage was in the 2020 vice presidential debates against former Vice President Mike Pence. Her calm demeanor in the face of Pence’s repeated interruptions went viral, birthing the “Excuse me, I’m speaking,” buzz phrase.
Her debate performance propelled the Biden campaign and galvanized women voters, says Cynthia Richie Terrell, executive director and founder of Represent Women, a research organization studying barriers to women’s political leadership and solutions for them.
When Harris demanded “to be heard, that appeals to women voters and their daughters who have not always felt heard,” Terrell says.
The number of independent voters is growing faster than the number of party registrants, Terrell says, and an aggressive debate performance from Trump could be a turn-off. “There’s a growing group of people who want politicians to be more accountable and want them to behave better.” Trump’s “behavior in 2016 was sort of entertaining,” but “fewer and fewer people feel like that’s an attribute that they want in a leader,” according to Terrell.
The debate may be an opportunity for Harris to successfully disrupt the American public’s image of what a president can look like.
Read the full article here.
