Photo: Composite image: Kamala Harris AFP/Roberto Schmidt. Donald Trump AFP/Mark Peterson.
Immediately after the US presidential debate between Kamala Harris and Donald Trump on Wednesday, the Republican candidate and his supporters complained he'd been unfairly treated by the moderators.
"You have two moderators there who acted as agents of the Harris campaign," said David Bossie, a longtime Trump adviser and Republican National Committee member.
Trump's chief complaint was that the ABC's David Muir and Linsey Davis fact-checked him on various claims but failed to do the same with Harris.
If he had a grounds for complaint on that, he could not reasonably gripe about the moderators giving him space to speak.
An RNZ analysis found he took more turns and spoke many more words than Democratic candidate and Vice President Harris. And although many analysts said Harris's tactics knocked Trump off his favoured talking points - the economy and the border - he still got a lot out on these issues by sheer weight of words.
Who talked the most?
Trump clocked in more than 8000 words, while Harris spoke 6020 words. Trump also seized more speaking turns (45) than Harris (25). The moderators, David Muir and Linsey Davis invited Trump to speak 25 times, his additional speaking turns came through interruptions to moderators.
Harris had fewer speaking turns than Joe Biden's 39 in the first debate and spoke 800 fewer words than Biden.
The top 10 longest answers in the debate were equally split, with each candidate claiming five spots. This is in contrast to the Trump-Biden debate, where Trump had seven of the longest answers, and Biden three.
Trump's longest answer was about the war in Ukraine, in which he claimed: "I will get it settled before I even become President, if I win, when I am President Elect."
His second longest answer was an attack on Harris and her policies where he said she would confiscate people's guns, defund the police and "do transgender operations on illegal aliens that are in prison."
Harris's longest answer was about the Affordable Care Act, which included a rebuttal of Trump's assertion she planned to confiscate guns. "Tim Walz and I are both gun owners. We're not taking anybody's guns away."
What was said
Several analysts credited Harris for getting Trump off topics that she is weaker on by goading him with personal attacks. The economy and immigration are widely regarded as strengths for Trump and weaknesses for Harris.
And while Trump certainly took the bait Harris laid for him on several occasions, he did still get plenty of mentions in on these topics.
Trump used the word economy 13 times in the debate, compared to five times in his earlier clash with Biden. Trump mentioned inflation 10 times in this clash, to Harris's two.
Trump also returned to the topic of immigration repeatedly, mentioning the border and migrants. He often linked immigration with crime.
On the other hand, Trump said even more about abortion than Harris, even though it's an issue of strength for the vice-president, compared with Trump.
Other hot topics of the debate included the wars in Ukraine and Gaza, and relations with China, and tariffs (which Harris branded a 'sales tax' when applied by Trump).
Some phrases were on heavy repeat. As in the first debate, Trump trotted out "billions and billions" four times. He used "millions and millions" six times. "Great" featured 11 times. Another term used three times was "pouring into our country", which Trump used when talking about immigration. He referred to Joe Biden as the "worst president" twice, down from four times in the first debate, but this time he included "worst vice president", also using it twice.
Harris tried to push positivity, using the word "aspiration" five times. She also spoke of her middle class upbringing, using the term "middle class" five times. "Opportunity economy" was mentioned three times. She also referred to "not going back" to events of January 6.
"For everyone watching, who remembers what January 6 was? I say we don't have to go back. Let's not go back. We're not going back. It's time to turn the page, and if that was a bridge too far for you, well, there is a place in our campaign for you to stand for country, to stand for our democracy, to stand for rule of law and to end the chaos."
What was the vibe?
According to a language sentiment data dictionary, which rates words as either positive, neutral or negative, Harris used a higher percentage of positive words than Trump during the debate, and slightly fewer negative words.
Trump's top three negative terms were war, bad and worst. Harris's top three were war, criminal and problem.
How we analysed the data: The debate was transcribed by Otter.ai and then manually cleaned to improve accuracy. Text was analysed using R and the Quanteda package.
