Good morning. It’s Saturday, September 7, and no, this terrible LA heat wave is not over yet. Here’s what’s happening in Opinion.

For the first time in his life, Donald Trump will be on television without being the center of attention. Most people will be looking at the person next to him. The highly anticipated (and nearly canceled) presidential debate between him, the twice-impeached ex-commander in chief, and Kamala Harris, the vice president, is the last single event we can count on to sway this deadlock election before votes begin to be counted on November 5.

After nine years of MAGA pageantry, this country knows Donald Trump. Far less is known about Harris, even though she has been vice president since 2021 and previously served as U.S. senator for California, the state’s attorney general and district attorney for San Francisco. She won her first election in 2003, just as Trump was taping the first season of his career-launching television show, “The Apprentice.”

So in California, we’ve seen Harris debate as a candidate arguing exclusively for herself (as opposed to defending Joe Biden in the 2020 vice presidential debate or trying to get a word in during the 2019 Democratic primary debates). One such debate came in 2010 against then-Los Angeles District Attorney Steve Cooley when she was running for California Attorney General; another came in 2016 against then-Rep. Loretta Sanchez, a Democrat from Orange County, in a race for a vacant U.S. Senate seat. (For completeness, the Times editorial board endorsed Harris in 2016 but not in 2010.)

I rewatched both debates this week for clues about what to expect against Trump on Tuesday. Harris’ 2016 U.S. Senate debate featured an opponent who (to put it mildly) didn’t exactly come across as a senator. Sanchez infamously ended her closing argument with a “dab,” a head-down, arms-outstretched gesture that all the cool kids did at the time. It capped off a performance that required moderators to raise their voices to remind Sanchez to stop talking (sound familiar?). Harris, who attacked Sanchez for her absence from key House votes and committee hearings, skillfully put on a poker face while her opponent rambled.

Her debate with Cooley in 2010 was different. Though lively, their exchange focused on the issues of the day and even drifted into borderline constitutional questions involving prosecutorial discretion. The debate ended with a faux pas that arguably doomed Cooley: He blatantly declared that he would take his public pension during his tenure as attorney general to supplement what he called the attorney general’s “absurdly low” salary of about $150,000. If people remember anything from the debate, it’s that.

And that’s unfortunate, because the debate offered a clear, substantive contrast between the candidates at a crucial time for criminal justice reform in California. Cooley and Harris exchanged views on three-strikes sentencing, whether potentially unconstitutional ballot initiatives should be defended in federal court, immigration enforcement, and more. Both clearly highlighted differences where they existed without sounding petty. If my decision had been based solely on this debate, I would have voted for Harris; ultimately, I voted for Cooley, a Republican whose deft leadership of the sprawling Los Angeles District Attorney’s Office made him an ideal candidate for attorney general.

With Trump on stage, no one expects a debate like Tuesday’s. What one should expect, given Harris’s previous performances in California, is for one of the candidates to show discipline and poise, knowing when to hold back and let her opponent wreck himself.

This could be Kamala Harris’ Achilles heel among crucial undecided voters: Her policy proposals on immigration, housing, corporate taxation and inflation either deviate from her previous statements on those issues or are unworkable, writes Lanhee J. Chen, a Republican who advised Mitt Romney’s presidential campaign and ran for state controller in 2012.

Californians need relief on their electricity bills. Lawmakers have failed to deliver. California residents pay some of the highest electricity bills in the country. But that’s not going to change anytime soon, writes the Times editorial board: “Months of discussions about a comprehensive package to reduce monthly bills for customers of PG&E, Edison and San Diego Gas and Electric all but fizzled out at the end of the legislative session last week.”

The list of musicians who have asked Trump to stop using their songs is incredibly long. ABBA, Adele, even the Village People. Columnist Robin Abcarian counts at least 41 artists who have objected to the former president’s campaign using their music at campaign events. Just because the artists complain and threaten to sue doesn’t mean the campaigns can no longer use their work – but at least John McCain and Barack Obama were respectful enough to stop playing the music of singers and songwriters who didn’t agree with it.

Take it from a nonbinary professor: Don’t ask students to state their pronouns on the first day. ““When I stand in front of my class with my male body in women’s clothing, the students know what’s going on,” writes Darren Rosenblum, a law professor at McGill University. “But I want to make it clear that my classroom is a safe place where people can identify, or not.”

How do we prevent AI-powered attempts to manipulate the election? Elon Musk posted an AI-generated audio clip of Kamala Harris saying things she never said. In New Hampshire, a robocall used the fake voice of Joe Biden. Ann G. Skeet and John P. Pelissero say it’s too late for policy changes that could make a difference in this election, so voters themselves must watch for clues that the information they consume was generated by artificial intelligence.

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