Joe Biden and Donald Trump will hold the first of two scheduled US presidential debates on Thursday, a high-stakes rematch between two well-defined political foes.
The earlier-than-usual confrontation will give both men a chance to make their case for a second-term to what could be one of the largest television – and internet – audiences of the election cycle.
Thursday’s show down also carries the risk that Americans already dissatisfied with their options will come away even more dismayed. Polls show an extremely tight race between the 81-year-old incumbent and the 78-year-old former US president – and both candidates remain broadly unpopular.
Here’s what to know and what to watch during the 90-minute primetime event, scheduled to start at 9pm ET inside a CNN studio in Atlanta.
What’s at stake for each candidate?
Both candidates arrive at the debate with a similar goal: magnify the other’s weaknesses.
Trump has been convicted of 34 felony counts, and is set to be sentenced on 11 July. This week marked two years since the supreme court overturned Roe v Wade, a decision Trump has taken credit for. As president, he nominated three conservative justices who voted to eliminate the constitutional right to an abortion, sparking a political backlash even in predominantly conservative states.
Trump’s vision for a second term includes threats to prosecute his political enemies and a promise to pardon rioters involved in the January 6 attack on the Capitol, raising alarms about the future of American democracy and the rule of law.
Biden, meanwhile, will need to confront the electorate’s deep malaise: discontent over his handling of the economy and the US-Mexico border. But perhaps even more acutely, Biden faces questions about whether he has the stamina and cognitive health to lead the country for another four years. An energetic performance – like his State of the Union address – could allay some concerns.
Ahead of Thursday’s debate, Trump and his team were scrambling to temper expectations for Biden, after placing the bar so low that even some conservatives warned the Democratic president would exceed expectations if he managed simply to stay awake for it. While the right has incessantly portrayed Biden as frail and doddering, including through the use of misleading videos, Trump, too, has a pattern of rambling and gaffe-making during campaign speeches.
Biden is also working against the weight of history: incumbent presidents, out of practice after nearly four years of being in charge, tend to lose the first debate.
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What’s the strategy for each candidate?
Both candidates have presidential records to defend and second-term visions to offer.
From the debate stage, Biden’s challenge will be to remind voters why they chose him over Trump four years ago. He is likely to use Trump’s own words against him – arguing that the former president is a grave risk to reproductive rights and American democracy. On immigration, Biden has new data to point to, showing the number of encounters at the south-west border declined steadily since his asylum restrictions took effect. He also recently rolled out new actions to expand pathways to citizenship for people living in the US without documentation.
Staying calm but alert under the barrage of attacks expected to fly from Trump poses another test for the president, who is known to have a temper when provoked.
Trump, by contrast, needs to appeal to the swing voters and moderate Republicans who abandoned him in 2020 but are unhappy with the present state of affairs. They are not likely to be persuaded by personal insults and conspiracy theories.
Rather than resurfacing baseless claims about the 2020 election or fuming about his own legal entanglements, voters will want to know if he’s capable of governing in their interest, pressing the Republican’s advantage on the economy and immigration. Moderators are sure to try to pin Trump down on abortion and reproductive rights.
A disciplined performance might be enough to convince some of his Republican skeptics.
The legal issues
There is a debate among Democrats over how central an issue Biden should make Trump’s felony counts, of falsifying business records as part of a criminal hush money scheme to influence the 2016 election. He also faces serious charges in three further criminal trials.
For many voters, Trump’s legal travails are eclipsed by their concerns over the economy, immigration, abortion rights and the state of democracy. But there are signs the criminal conviction is a concern for some voters, particularly independent and swing voters who could determine the outcome of the election.
Biden has been mostly restrained on the subject in an effort to avoid any appearance of political interference, though that hasn’t stopped the former president from alleging as much. With the exception of a few jabs at campaign events, Biden is mostly letting his allies make the aggressive attacks against Trump’s legal record.
Democrats have sought to cast Trump’s felonies – and pending cases – as a victory for the rule of law and the equal application of justice, while the former president has claimed without evidence that the case was “rigged” and a “scam”.
Trump, meanwhile, could also go after Biden’s son, Hunter, who was recently convicted on charges related to the purchase of a gun. Trump and his rightwing allies have also tried to tie Hunter’s foreign business dealings to the president, but they uncovered no evidence to support that.
The rules of the debate
Until relatively recently, it wasn’t clear Biden and Trump would share a stage again after 2020. But then their campaigns agreed to a pair of debates, the first scheduled for Thursday, 27 June, the earliest in the nation’s history.
The CNN-hosted event, moderated by network anchors Jake Tapper and Dana Bash, circumvents the nonpartisan Commission on Presidential Debates, which typically sets the debate schedule and the rules. It will run for 90 minutes, with two scheduled commercial breaks.
As in past debates, the rules of engagement and – how effectively the moderators enforce them – will help set the tone.
According to the terms, mutually agreed to by the campaigns, it will take place in an Atlanta studio without an audience, depriving Trump of the real-time feedback he craves from his supporters. The candidates’ microphones will be muted when it is not their turn to speak, an attempt to minimize the onstage chaos that overwhelmed their first debate in 2020.
Independent candidate Robert Kennedy Jr failed to qualify under CNN’s eligibility criteria, which included earning at least 15% support in four high-quality polls and appearing on enough state ballots to reach 270 electoral votes.
There will be no opening statement. A coin flip determined the podium placement and the order of closing statements. Biden’s campaign chose to select the podium that will appear on the right side of viewers’ screens, while Trump’s campaign chose to deliver his closing argument last.
Will it move the needle?
About six in 10 Americans say they are “extremely” or “very” likely to tune into the debate live, or to watch parts of it afterward, or read or listen to analysis of their performance, according to a new poll from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research. It also found that supporters of both candidates view the debate as important.
Americans are deeply polarized and the universe of voters open to persuasion – and live in the handful of states that will decide the election – is small. Many of those people will watch, like sports fans, to cheer on their candidate, while others may tune in simply for the spectacle of showdown between the two oldest major party presidential nominees in American history.
As has become tradition, both campaigns will likely claim success immediately following the event. To the degree both spin operations can pump out content highlighting their candidates’ stand out moments – and their opponents’ missteps – they will be correct. Few expect a polling bump to last through election day.
By contrast, a major gaffe – even a minor gaffe, depending how it’s repackaged and disseminated – could haunt the candidate online for months.
But perhaps, for the viewers who have so far tried to look away, the debate will clarify the choice and the stakes this November.
