This will be their first – and perhaps last – confrontation in a presidential campaign that is already out of the ordinary and extremely indecisive: Kamala Harris and Donald Trump will meet this Tuesday, September 10, to debate in Philadelphia, in the decisive state of Pennsylvania.
The candidates, who are neck and neck in the polls, will take the stage at 9 p.m. in the United States (Wednesday at 3 a.m. in France) for a 90-minute debate broadcast live, with two commercial breaks. At the helm to moderate the discussions: presenters Linsey Davis and David Muir of ABC, in a room without an audience.
Kamala Harris and Donald Trump have “no reason to take big risks,” lobbyist and commentator Joshua Zive predicted to AFP. With polls “so close,” the election could indeed be decided, as in 2016 and 2020, by a few thousand votes in some states. “The stakes are higher for Harris than for Trump because he is already very well-known while she still has to explain who she is to the majority of people,” says Mark Feldstein, a media analyst at the University of Maryland.
Long-negotiated rules
In order to best prepare for this meeting, the teams of the two candidates have been negotiating for several weeks the rules that would govern it. Among them, the question of whether or not to mute a candidate’s microphone when he no longer has the floor – as was the case during the debate at the end of June between Joe Biden and Donald Trump.Kamala Harris’ team wanted to keep the microphones open, hoping that his Republican rival would interrupt him untimely and launch into his usual digressions – and thus show himself in an unpresidential light.
But Donald Trump’s team flatly refused, accusing Democrats of wanting to change the rules they had already agreed on. ABC finally decided, and the microphones of the two candidates will only be open when they are given the floor. Only the debate moderators will be allowed to ask questions, and no topics or questions will be shared in advance with either side. The candidates’ advisers will also not be allowed to contact them during commercial breaks.
On the content of the exchanges, the candidates will not present any introductory remarks, diving directly into the question-and-answer section. Each will have two minutes to answer a question, while two minutes will be reserved for the opponent to reply. An additional minute will be possible for any “additional remarks, clarifications, or responses”, according to the rules. At the end of the debate, the candidates will have two minutes to present their conclusions.