President Biden and former President Trump are set to clash on the debate stage Thursday in what will be a pivotal moment in the race for the White House.
Despite low voter enthusiasm, lawmakers and experts predict that Americans will participate in Thursday’s debate in droves. Whoever performs better can score a big win as the race progresses to the final stages.
Both candidates face serious questions from voters about their suitability for office, including issues related to their age and temperament. A game-changing moment is needed, especially for Biden, who has lagged in race polls against Trump.
“I think this is going to be really important,” said Sen. Shelley Moore Capito (R-W.Va.).
“We’ve seen this with other applicants, where they don’t handle questions correctly or say things wrong,” she said. “Your answers are very important, so the stakes are quite high.”
Biden and Trump have officially met the eligibility requirements for Thursday’s debate. Independent candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. failed to qualify, making the first debate a true repeat of the 2020 presidential debate.
Biden, 81, and Trump, 78, entered the debate neck and neck in opinion polls, underscoring the importance of this moment.
Tevi Troy, a presidential historian at the Bipartisan Policy Center, said Americans will go along with judging candidates’ mental health despite low enthusiasm.
“Even if people don’t really care about the candidates, they want to see if there’s a meltdown on stage. And there can be two types of collapse. “Trump could have a meltdown of anger, and Biden could have a meltdown of age,” he said.
Thursday’s presidential debate will be the first since 1984 not hosted by the Commission on Presidential Debates. And before this year, no televised general election debate had been held before the end of September since its inception in 1960, putting Thursday’s meeting in truly foreign territory and leaving people wondering what a Biden-Trump rematch would mean.
“It’s an unknown,” said Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.), adding that early voting forced the debate to move ahead of the calendar. He noted that Virginia holds gubernatorial and Senate debates in July, months before early voting begins in mid-September.
“It doesn’t make much sense to have a debate in October,” Kaine added. “We have to move the calendar earlier to accommodate states with early voting.”
Others point out that interest is driven by the fact that there are only two debates, next week and in September. A vice presidential debate is also expected to take place, but its importance is usually diminished compared to the premier event.
“Given that there are only two of us and we’ve discussed and talked about the readiness of both candidates, I think people want to see Biden perform and see how crazy Trump is going to get. So I think there will be a lot of interest in this debate,” said former Rep. Joe Crowley (D-N.Y.).
Biden enters the debate under pressure to gain much-needed support in the polls after failing to gain much support over Trump even after the former president was convicted in a hush trial in New York. Trump has narrow leads in key swing states since the ruling. new pollAccording to a survey by Emerson College Polling/The Hill, the former president was 0.6 percentage points ahead of Biden. collection of opinion pollsAt Decision Desk HQ/The Hill.
CNN’s Van Jones argued Thursday that this debate is one Biden will lose and could decide the entire election.
“As far as I’m concerned, this is the whole election,” he said. “Because if Biden goes out and messes up, it’s game over. If he goes out and a week later he ranks lower in the polls, that would cause panic throughout the party. But if he can get in there and hold his own against a runaway train, a locomotive, and the raging bull that is Donald Trump, this man deserves another chance at becoming president. Because it’s hard work.”
Opinions are divided over the number of Americans who will watch, with some, like Capito, predicting a “massive audience” that could rival Trump’s first meeting with former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in 2016.
Others, like Troy, argue that the numbers may be lower compared to other debates because of other ways Americans can access parts of the debate, such as through TikTok or social platform X.
“Now, there are great moments, there are mistakes, there are meltdowns, and even if you’re not watching live, everyone will be watching on social media,” Troy said. “Even if the viewership rate is low, I think the reach rate is higher.”
The importance of debate in terms of changing the minds of voters is an unresolved debate in politics. Experts note that while some debates became major parts of history, others ended up becoming blips in the overall election cycle.
“There is a general question about how often the debate actually matters. “There are structural elements to the race that determine what happens in the race, so do arguments actually change things?” Troy said.
He pointed out that Senator Mitt Romney (R-Utah) held his first debate against former President Obama in 2012 but ultimately lost. On the other hand, there are times when the debate is important, including when former President Reagan famously said in 1984 that he would not “exploit” former Vice President Walter Mondale’s “youth and inexperience.”
Still, Thursday’s debate remains the first big moment of the campaign, as it arrives ahead of two national conventions.
Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) told The Hill: “It’s nice to see that. We know who the candidates are. Why not just let them butt heads? I’m all for it. I think it’s good. Let us go out and talk to each other.”
Warren argued that the event would help Biden’s re-election bid because it would give “everyone an opportunity to see up close and personal Donald Trump being Donald Trump.”
“I think this will be the biggest issue of the upcoming (election),” she said.
“Please remind everyone again who these two people are,” she continued. “If this is what comes out of this debate, exactly who they are at the core, I feel pretty good about this.”