On Wednesday night, disappointed by Democratic vice presidential candidate Kamala Harris’ consistent face-making during her debate with vice president Mike Pence, Megyn Kelly had some unique and succinct advice for Harris, tweeting, “Take it like a woman. Don’t make faces.”
Take it like a woman. Don’t make faces.
— Megyn Kelly (@megynkelly) October 8, 2020
When one social media user asked what Kelly meant by her comment, Kelly explained, “Instead of ‘like a man.’ We can be stoic too.”
Instead of “like a man.” We can be stoic too
— Megyn Kelly (@megynkelly) October 8, 2020
National Review editor Rich Lowry stated, “They should have told Harris in debate prep that she’d be on camera during Pence’s answers and smirking is never a good look.”
They should have told Harris in debate prep that she’d be on camera during Pence’s answers and smirking is never a good look
— Rich Lowry (@RichLowry) October 8, 2020
The Hill reported, “At one point, Pence’s claims that both Harris and Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden want to ‘raise taxes’ and implement a ‘$2 trillion Green New Deal,’ the California senator responded by slowly shaking her head, smirking and quietly saying ‘wow.’”
But as The Daily Wire reported, Harris stated that Biden “will not raise taxes on anybody who makes less than $400,000 a year.” Pence replied, “[Biden] said he’s gonna repeal the Trump tax cuts … Joe Biden has said twice during the debate last week that he’s going to repeal the Trump tax cuts. That was tax cuts that gave the average working family $2,000 in a tax break every single year.”
Harris claimed, “That is, that is absolutely not true.”
Pence replied, “That’s the math. Is he only going to repeal part of the Trump tax cuts?”
Harris weakly responded, “Joe Biden will not raise taxes on anyone that does not make less than $400,000 a year.”
Independent pollster Frank Luntz told Fox News following the debate that voters from swing states were turned off by the “condescending” and “abrasive” attitude toward Pence.
“The complaint about Kamala Harris was that she was abrasive and condescending,” he said. “The complaint about Mike Pence was that he was too tired, but [he was] vice presidential, or presidential. If this is a battle over style and substance — which is often the case with undecided voters because they simply do not choose on policy, they also choose on persona — this was Mike Pence’s night.”
Harris quickly flamed out in the Democratic primaries, dropping out in December 2019. Perry Bacon Jr. writing for fivethirtyeight.com, who admitted he was someone “inclined to look for the next Obama” and thus had been favorable toward Harris, wrote after she dropped out:
I expected she would stay in the race at least through Iowa and perhaps even New Hampshire, and drop out if she had poor showings in those contests. There has been a lot of reporting about infighting in her campaign and struggles to raise money, so I suspect those were the main factors driving her to drop out before any voting has taken place. Put simply, she may have run out of money, as Harris herself hinted in a post on Medium describing her decision to leave the race. Also, her poll numbers have been pretty steadily declining.
Related: Independent Pollster: Voters Turned Off By ‘Condescending’ Harris, Pence ‘Was The Winner’