Trump signals more stress and inflammatory statements than Harris during debate

ANALYSIS — Vice President Kamala Harris appeared to rattle former President Donald Trump during Tuesday’s presidential debate, with Trump signaling more stress than Harris during the more-than-90 minute event, according to a Roll Call Factba.se StressLens Analysis.

Trump’s voice stress rates spiked 14 times, a sign of discomfort, with four being strong spikes. Harris spiked five times, with three being strong strikes, according to the analysis. (These numbers only include the spikes once the debate officially started.)

The analysis captured the voice stress of each candidate during the debate compared to each of their average stress rates, which have been determined from more than 2,000 hours of audio and video of speeches and interviews from both candidates. (See more in the methodology note below.)

Trump felt most out of control when calling out Harris for not getting any votes in the 2024 Democratic primaries and tying her to President Joe Biden.

“She got no votes. He got 14 million votes. What you did, you talk about a threat to democracy. He got 14 million votes and they threw him out of office. And you know what? I’ll give you a little secret. He hates her. He can’t stand her,” Trump said.

His three other strongest spikes in voice stress revolved around abortion, calling out Harris for previously saying she wanted to ban fracking, and discussing NATO.

Harris’ three strongest voice stress spikes were all during her short responses to Trump’s claims. She signaled the most stress by responding with “come on” when Trump talked about Democrats pushing abortion in the late pregnancy months.

Harris also felt discomfort when trying to interject and respond to Trump attacking her on guns and fracking.

“I just need to respond one time to what he has said multiple times,” Harris said.

Trump’s other stressors included abortion, foreign policy, Jan. 6, and inflation.

Harris’ other stressors came at the beginning of the debate about her plans for improving housing costs and for the Biden-Harris administration inheriting problems from Trump’s time as president.

Inflammatory language

Trump’s statements were tagged 26 times (19.7% of his speaking time) for harassment, and Harris was tagged once (0.9% of her time). The transcript was put through a moderation filter, an AI that social media companies use to flag potential speech that spreads hate, threatens violence, and is considered harassing. (See note below)

Trump’s inflammatory flags centered on immigration and his baseless claims that Haitian immigrants are “eating dogs” in Springfield, Ohio.

Harris’ lone statement to get flagged was calling out Trump for stopping the passage of the bipartisan border bill, saying, “Donald Trump got on the phone, called up some folks in Congress and said, ‘Kill the bill.’”

Say my name

Harris was deliberate about calling out Trump by name during the debate, mentioning his first and last name 32 times and his last name alone six times.

Trump did not use Harris’ name once in the debate. However, he did call out “Biden” 13 times and “Joe Biden” once.

Speaking time

Trump spoke for about 4.5 more minutes than Harris during the 1 hour, 35 minute and 12-second debate. Trump spoke for about 42 minutes (44.6% of the debate time) and Harris spoke for about 38 minutes (39.8% of the debate time).

Trump got in 8,147 words, while Harris spoke 5,984 words. However, Trump speaks nearly 22% faster than Harris off script (that is, without a teleprompter) on average. Harris spoke 3% slower than her average.

You can find the full transcript of the Sept. 10 debate on Roll Call Factba.se with analysis.

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Methodology note: The Roll Call Factba.se StressLens analysis of the 2024 debate is based on more than 2,000 hours each of audio and video of Harris and Trump in multiple other settings, which enables detection of deviations associated with their individual physiological voice patterns. Over one standard deviation is evidence of a lack of perceived control by the speaker. The farther away the speaker is from their average stress rate means they feel more out of control.

Inflammatory language note: This does not mean we — or anyone — thinks it’s harassment. It means, if they posted that message on most social media platforms, those exact words would get flagged for review as being harassment of a person or group.

It’s scored 1-100.

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