In what would be their first and possibly only televised debate before what promises to be a nail-bitingly close 2024 election in the United States in November, the Democratic Party presidential candidate, Kamala Harris, and Republican former President Donald Trump will face off in Philadelphia on Tuesday.
The high-stakes ABC debate will be a chance for US voters to finally see the two go head-to-head, after a month of shadow-boxing since President Joe Biden threw in the towel as candidate.
The gloves will be off in what is a critical test for both.
Harris, 59, has turbocharged and unified the Democratic party, and will now face an opponent who has called her “crazy” and subjected her to racist and sexist taunts.
America’s first female, Black and South Asian vice president has overhauled Trump’s lead in the polls but insists she remains the “underdog” in a tight race.
Knowing what’s at stake, she is spending five days holed up in the nearby city of Pittsburgh preparing for the debate.
The 78-year-old Trump is meanwhile expected to opt for an aggressive approach, after Harris’ entry into the race upended his White House bid and turned him into the oldest candidate in US history.
“These are two very different candidates that have previously never met in person,” Erin Christie, of the Rutgers University School of Communication and Information, told AFP.
“So it will prove to be a very enlightening debate which could even be the make-it-or-break-it factor in the election.”
That lack of any prior face time is a result of Trump having refused to attend Biden’s inauguration after falsely claiming he was cheated in the 2020 election.
Adding an extra frisson is the fact that the debate is happening in Pennsylvania, the most bitterly-fought of the battleground states that will decide the election.
Tuesday’s debate could meanwhile be the last. Harris and Trump have not agreed to any more, and this one is only happening after a bitter row ended with Harris’s camp reluctantly agreeing to have the candidates’ microphones muted while the other is speaking.
Americans will now be watching closely to see how it actually plays out on stage.
