PNN – The first debate between Kamala Harris, the vice president of the United States and the candidate of the Democratic Party, and Donald Trump, the former president and the candidate of the Republican Party of this country for the election of November 5, 2024, will be held for 90 minutes, so that not only tens of millions of Americans, but also the world will witness their serious competition.
According to the report of Pakistan News Network, the televised debate between Harris and Trump will be held on Tuesday evening, American time, from the studio of ABC News in Philadelphia, USA. Harris and Trump have never met or even spoken on the phone. But on Tuesday night local time, they will stand behind the tribunes of the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia to challenge each other for 90 minutes to the questions of David Muir and Lynsey Davis, two anchors of the ABC News television network.
How have Harris and Trump prepared themselves?
In the first Harris-Trump debate, on one side of the stage will be prosecutors seeking to portray their opponent as a threat to democracy and America’s past achievements. And on the other side, there will be an American billionaire who will portray his opponent as an extreme liberal politician who will bring the country’s economy into recession.
Tuesday night’s debate will be the first opportunity for Vice President Joe Biden’s Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump to meet and discuss America’s future. The two candidates have intensified their attacks on each other and each has designed their own method to outdo the other in their almost equal competition.
The televised debate, hosted by ABC News, may be the only chance Harris and Trump face each other before the November 5, 2024 election, meaning the debate is of high importance.
Aaron Call, a University of Michigan professor who studies presidential debates, warned that the importance of the debate should not be underestimated. Call told an American media: These debates cannot win an election, but they can certainly defeat candidates.
The shadow of the Biden-Trump debate over the Harris-Trump debate
The Harris-Trump debate in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania is the second presidential debate of this US election period, but experts say that the effects and damage of the first Biden-Trump debate in June should serve as a warning to the participants.
The first debate was held on June 27 and caused the election campaign of US President Joe Biden to stop. When facing Trump on the debate stage, Biden faltered and could not convey the main points of his speech.
Biden’s very poor performance caused even his closest allies to call for Biden’s withdrawal from the election, and less than a month later, Biden withdrew from the 2024 presidential race, and Harris soon replaced him as the Democratic candidate.
But experts say the events of the June debate will be a focus for Harris and Trump as they set their strategies for Tuesday. Some predict that a Biden defeat may even draw more attention to Tuesday’s debate.
Barbara Perry, a presidential historian at the University of Virginia, told one of the American media: The debate between Biden and Trump was the best presidential debate in American history. So this shows that in these debates, the stakes are real and high.
Harris’ strategy against Trump
Both Harris and Trump’s campaign staffs have been silent on Tuesday’s debate tactics, but Harris’ team seems to be hoping to mislead Trump, according to American media reports.
Harris’ campaign unsuccessfully demanded that Trump’s microphone not be turned off between questions so he could speak out of turn.
The request was the opposite of what the Biden campaign had pushed for in June. Biden’s team hoped a muted microphone would stop Trump.
A former San Francisco District Attorney and California Attorney General, Harris has a judicial style. He used this style during his time in the Senate. His tough questions during Senate committee hearings made him a national figure.
Trump’s sixth sense and his seventh debate
Meanwhile, Trump will be making his seventh appearance in a public election debate, more than any other presidential debate candidate in American history.
According to Barbara Perry, a presidential historian at the University of Virginia, Trump continues to draw on an entrenched factor. It seems that the criticisms and opinions of other candidates do not penetrate Trump. Trump’s base will support him either way.
This university professor says: “All the rules have become unimportant to him. He can’t be caught, and he can’t be tackled, because the people who are going to vote for him don’t care about those issues.”
But experts warn that Trump needs to expand his support base to win the November 5, 2024 election.
The difference between Harris and Trump in preparation for the debate
The introduction to the Harris-Trump debate also shows how each candidate might prepare on the debate stage.
The methods of preparation show the difference in style. According to US media reports, Trump continues to use traditional debate preparation and refrains from further discussing policy with staff. But Harris has settled in Pennsylvania to practice with mock debates and review Trump’s positions, just like Biden.
However, Trump reportedly tapped former Democratic congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard to help prepare for the debate.
Trump’s stereotypical statements and gender and racial insults
Experts have also warned that Trump’s approach to the gender and race of his opponent (Harris) could also be divisive during the debate.
Trump, meanwhile, has been prone to sexist attacks throughout his political career, repeatedly calling Hillary Clinton a “nasty woman” and making remarks targeting Clinton’s gender during a 2016 debate.
Trump has also continued to use gender slurs against Harris. For example, he has called Harris “incompetent,” mocked her laugh, and commented on her physical appearance. Whether or not he continues to do so on the debate stage will be an indication of which audience he is seeking to appeal to.
Abortion rights, the security of the US-Mexico border and immigration, the crime rate in the US, as well as the individual personalities of the candidates, are among the main topics that the anchors of ABC News are likely to raise.
Harris and Trump before the voters
A Sinai College and New York Times poll on Sunday also shows that while Harris leads in the three key battleground states of Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania, Trump has a 47-48 percent lead nationally. In four other key states, Arizona, Georgia, Nevada and North Carolina, the votes are tied.
Seven key, highly competitive states are expected to play an important role in determining the final outcome of this fall’s election, as the United States does not directly elect its president and vice president to the White House.
In all but two of the 50 states, electors cast ballots for the winner in the Electoral Colleges, which will be either Harris and Minnesota Gov. Tim Walls and Harris’ running mate, or Trump and Ohio Sen. JD Vance and Trump’s running mate. Electoral college votes are based on population, so the most populous states have the biggest impact.