Analysis Harris was the victor - but the race is far from won

For more than 90 minutes on Tuesday night, Kamala Harris put Donald Trump on the defensive, taunting him about the size of his crowds and pressing him over his shifting positions on abortion. It clearly rattled the former president, who took the bait again and again.

- Lauren Gambino

"Donald Trump actually has no plan for you, because he is more interested in defending himself than he is in looking out for you," Harris said, in what amounted to the former prosecutor's opening argument to the American people.

With the race on a knife edge, and Trump's support relatively stable despite his 34 felony convictions, an assassination attempt and the replacement of his Democratic opponent, Harris could hardly afford a shaky performance, much less a defeat. In the end, she delivered what her fellow Californian Gavin Newsom, the state's governor, described as a "masterclass".

"She kept looking in the camera, talking about you, talking about me, talking about the American people, talking about the issues they care about, and he was talking about dogs, and he was talking about crowd sizes and his grievances and his little pity party and his victim mindset," he said. "It was a terrible night for him, but it was, most importantly, a great night for the American people."

Trump would not commit to vetoing a national abortion ban, arguing the question was meritless because neither party would conceivably win the 60 votes needed to pass such legislation in the Senate. He declined to say he lost the last election, or that he regretted any of his actions on January 6, when he delivered an incendiary speech before his supporters stormed the US Capitol.