If there was any doubt, this year proved that Presidential debates do really matter. After all, Joe Biden performed so poorly in the first debate back on June 27th, that by the second debate he’s no longer the Democratic nominee.
On September 10th, Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump will meet for the first (and possibly only) time ever. So let’s dive into everything you’ll need to know to prepare for this all-important moment in the 2024 Presidential campaign!
The Rules
Despite much back and forth, it appears that this debate will be conducted under the same rules as the previous debate.
As a result, the whole event will be 90 minutes long, and will not feature any public audience. There will be no opening statements, with each candidate getting two-minute closing statements instead. Each question can take up to five minutes, with two minutes for the first answer, one minute for a rebuttal, another minute for a response to that rebuttal, and potentially a fifth minute should the moderators decide.
The one outstanding question is whether the candidates’ microphones will be muted when it’s not their turn to speak. The Biden campaign originally pushed for this stipulation, fearing a repeat of the first 2020 debate when Trump constantly interrupted Biden. Harris’ team, on the other hand, wants the mics unmuted in the hopes that Trump will make some inflammatory comments.
In order to bait Trump, the Harris campaign accused his team of keeping the microphones muted behind his back, asserting that his own campaign is afraid of what he might say. While this strategy did get Trump to publicly admit he wanted open mics, his campaign held firm and it looks like there’ll be no changes.
The Moderators
Back in June, the CNN debate was moderated by Dana Bash and Jake Tapper, two cable TV hosts who employ an adversarial questioning style. So it was a bit of a surprise to see the pair mostly avoid getting too involved in the back-and-forth.
This decision upset some Democratic viewers, and earned some rare words of praise from Donald Trump, but this discussion was largely drowned out by the whole ‘Should Biden drop out?’ post-debate controversy.
This time, the debate will be moderated by nightly news anchor David Muir and his correspondent/Sunday nightly news anchor Linsey Davis. As anchors, Muir and Davis employ a much less adversarial questioning style, so it would be especially shocking to see them take an active role in the proceedings.
It’s worth noting that – like practically all other news organizations – Trump has a history with ABC News. He threatened to pull out of the debate because of his lawsuit against GMA host George Stephnopoulos, and repeatedly disparaged correspondent Rachel Scott during his inflammatory appearance before the NABJ.
For entertainment industry insiders there’s an additional subplot to this debate, as Dana Walden – the Co-Chair of Disney Entertainment, which oversees ABC News among other divisions – is one of Kamala Harris’ closest friends.
Walden is the front-runner to replace Bob Iger as the next Disney CEO, and the company was recently the target of a hostile takeover effort led by Trump allies Ike Perlmutter and Nelson Peltz.
The Setting
The debate will be held in the National Constitution Center, which opened in 2003 on the Independence Mall in Philadelphia. In its relatively short history, the Center’s already hosted a number of notable events, including Barack Obama’s March 2008 speech on race.
It looks like the actual debate will take place in the Center’s Kimmel Theater which hosted an April 2008 primary debate between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, as well as a September 2020 town hall with Donald Trump and (ironically) George Stephanpoulos.
As anyone who took several high school field trips to the Center can attest to, the Kimmel Theater has a unique design. The stage itself is relatively small and circular, surrounded on all sides by elevated seats. On top of that, it’s a cramped stage – and like the 2008 debate – we’ll likely see the podiums positioned quite closely together.
Therefore, there’s a real possibility that sparks fly between the two nominees. After all, during the town hall debate in 2016, Donald Trump memorably walked over to Hillary Clinton and lingered behind her. Back in 2019, as Kamala Harris weighed her own Presidential bid, her team asked her how she would handle a similar situation.
According to Edward-Isaac Dovere’s book ‘Battle for the Soul’, Harris responded “I’d turn around and say ‘Why are you being so weird? What’s wrong with you?'”.
The Candidates
Donald Trump has participated in six previous 1-on-1 debates, three against Hillary Clinton in 2016 as well as three against Joe Biden in 2020 and 2024. Post-debate polls showed Trump losing his first five such contests, before winning this summer’s confrontation with Biden.
From that last debate with Hillary to September 10th’s clash with Kamala is 2,883 days, nearly eight years since Trump debated someone who wasn’t named Joe Biden. Therefore, it’s not inconceivable that Trump will be out of practice facing a new opponent.
As for VP Harris, as Shane Goldmacher of the New York Times pointed out, she may owe her political career to a debate moment. In the sole debate of the 2010 California Attorney General race, Harris’ Republican opponent Steve Cooley stepped in it when he was asked if he would keep his District Attorney pension while also drawing a salary as AG.
“Yes, I do,” Cooley responded. “I earned it. I definitely earned whatever pension rights I have, and I will certainly rely upon that to supplement the very low, incredibly low salary that’s paid to the attorney general.”
Harris answered with her trademark laugh, “Go for it Steve! You earned it!”
Her campaign clipped Cooley’s answer for the closing ad of their campaign, and in November Harris ended up winning the race by just 0.8%.
This story highlights a little appreciated aspect of Harris’ debate history. When people think back to her debate performances, they tend to remember the dramatic, showy moments. Her “that little girl was me” shot at Biden, telling an interrupting Mike Pence “I’m speaking”; not to mention all those Judiciary Committee moments where she grilled GOP witnesses like Bill Barr, Brett Kavanaugh and Jeff Sessions.
Just as often, however, Harris tends to stay out of her opponent’s way. In addition to the aforementioned example with Cooley, there was also her sole 2016 U.S. Senate debate when Harris largely ignored Rep. Loretta Sanchez’s dab (remember dabbing?).
Perhaps most famously, she never mentioned the fly that landed on Mike Pence’s head during their Vice Presidential debate. As she revealed later to Rachel Maddow, Harris had noticed it but deliberately remained mum.
This tendency to hang back might explain why she mostly ignored Tulsi Gabbard when the former Congresswoman sought to pick some fights against her during two 2020 Democratic primary debates. As Gabbard transitioned to the Republican Party over the past few years, she leveraged memories of those moments into a spot on Trump’s debate prep team.
Finally, let’s remember that after the previously mentioned 2020 Vice Presidential debate, a CNN survey found that Harris was the victor of that confrontation with Pence by a 59% to 38% margin.
Whatever the result, this debate is heavily favored to be the most crucial event of this entire fall campaign.