Analysis of VP Kamala Harris's Transcript in the September 10 2024 Debate

Good morning. Kamala Harris debated Donald Trump on ABC News on September 10, 2024. She communicated ideas about ways to stimulate demand and give tax credits to people to pay for two important life events, buying a first home and having a child. She spoke about putting abortion back into Federal Government jurisdiction (which just means a different set of legislators make those decisions), and she defined our enemies clearly as Russia, Iran, North Korea and less clearly China, saying she does not speak with, nor curry favor with dictators.

This blogpost focuses on the words she used in the debate, used without editing or 'cleaning up duplicates', based on the ABC News (partial) transcript released on September 11, 2024 here. In 90 minutes she spoke exactly 1,103 words.

Twenty most frequently used words:

• President (55)
• People (48)
• Donald (32)
• Trump (31) & Trump's (7)
• American (26)
• Said (25)
• Will
• States
• One
• United
• Know
• Plan
• Understand
• Can
• Actually
• Going
• Well
• Former
• Want
• Care

Now, let's highlight a few things.
The Former, President of the United States, Donald Trump, was in her words 31 or 32 times in 90 minutes. When we watched the debate live, my wife walked away saying "stop doing that" because instead of speaking about her own candidacy, she quickly started talking about her opponent. If we add the word "Trump's", it takes this count up by 7 to 38 or 39 times.

She also speaks about people, or 'the People.' This makes sense because when she was in law enforcement, she represented "the People" as in "the People vs. John Doe."

The other thing we see is that she is is opinions-based, very direct and believe-driven. Those words are:

• Will (23 times)
• One (21)
• Know (20)
• Plan (20)
• Want (16)
• Tell (13)
• Believe (12)
• Now (11)
• Need (10)
• Fact (4)

Dr. Taibi Kahler does a good job explaining this, and you can also see this 'type' in other personality profile tests. 

She also used words that were technical or proper:

• America's (6), Americans (7), America (11), American (26)
• Tax (10)
• Military (9)
• Security (9)
• Economy (8)
• Election (8)
• National (8)
• Abortion (7)
• Law (6)
• Ukraine (5)
• Israel (5)
• Fracking (5)
• War (5)
• Criminal (4)
• Democracy (4)
• Guns (4) - Do you recall she said she is a gun owner?
• Middle-class (4)
• Zelenskyy (4)
• Pregnancy (3)

We are struck by how frequently these words were used. She believes in taxes and in our opinion, a military-driven security posture and war. She also highlighted abortion.

She also mentioned Ukraine and Israel relatively frequently when compared to America (10 vs. 50). We added up all the derivatives of America she used. She also mentioned Ukrainian President Zelenskyy four times.

You can see the topics that she was asked to debate on, including energy, the economy, the military, foreign policy, and taxes in the words she spoke.

Our summary of Harris's debate performance is that she spoke very, very often about Former President Donald Trump and his policies, his actions and his beliefs and character. She has a military-focus in foreign policy and national security.

Also, there were many filler words used: including, actually, want, well, and important.

Here is the Word Cloud (thank you to wordclouds.com).
https://imgdlvr.com/pic/wordclouds.com/20240912-8075/public

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Thank you for reading.

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