Former President Donald Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris are set to debate starting at 9 p.m. Tuesday in what could be the single most significant event of their battle for the White House.
Follow along with the Daily News as we provide regular updates on all the political action before, during and after the 90-minute showdown.
The two candidates head into the debate with polls showing a very tight race. Polling averages show Harris with a slight national lead of perhaps 2% and an even slimmer advantage in the seven battleground states that will likely determine the next president.
The stakes could hardly be higher. The first debate between any two presidential candidates typically draws a huge audience and has the rare potential to shift opinions of millions of voters all at once.
The debate, which will be moderated by John Muir and Linsey Davis, will air on ABC and several other networks. It will be broadcast live from the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia, but there won’t be any live audience.
It’s far from clear whether there will be a second chance for voters to see Trump and Harris face off. The Harris campaign says it will negotiate terms for a second debate with Trump in October assuming the first one goes as planned.
Both campaigns agreed to debate under the same rules as the debate between Trump and President Biden, who dropped out of the race after he flopped badly.
In addition to the lack of live audience, the candidates’ microphones will be muted when the other one is speaking.
Both candidates are seasoned debaters but it’s Harris’ first time competing in a general election presidential debate.
Trump, who is mounting his third White House campaign, sparred against Hillary Clinton in 2016. He took on Biden in 2020 and this past June.
Biden says Harris is ready
President Biden said he spoke to Vice President Kamala Harris about the debate.
The veep appeared “calm, cool and collected,” Biden said, without elaborating.
Biden says he plans to watch from New York where he arrived ahead of the Sept. 11 commemoration on Wednesday.
Trump posts memes on racist rumor about Haitians eating cats
As the debate edged nearer, Trump posted two memes on his social media site about cats and ducks.
The photo mashups are an unmistakable reference to a unfounded conspiracy theory accusing undocumented Haitian immigrants of stealing and eating pet cats in a small Ohio city.
Republican vice presidential nominee JD Vance amplified the racist rumor on Monday, along with other GOP leaders like Sen. Ted Cruz and Rep. Jim Jordan, the right-wing chair of the House Judiciary Committee.
Police and city officials in Springfield, Ohio, a city of 58,000 in the southwest portion of the state, say the claims are false and they don’t know how the rumors started.
Rules, rules, rules
Here is some of the fine print in the rules for the ABC debate that both Trump and Harris agreed to:
- The two candidates will stand at lecterns. They may only bring a pen, notepad and water.
- No prepared notes or props are allowed.
- There will be no opening statements and two-minute closing statements.
- Trump won a coin toss and elected to give his closing statement last, giving him the last word.
- Harris got to choose which side of the stage she would speak from. She took the television viewer’s right side.