How important is next week’s presidential debate?

This article was first published in the On the Trail 2024 newsletter. Sign up to receive the newsletter in your inbox on Tuesday and Friday mornings here.
Hello, friends. Happy September. Some states will send out vote-by-mail ballots this month. Election season is upon us.
What we know about next week’s debate
In the annals of history, President Joe Biden will be remembered, in part, for proving that presidential debates matter. Thanks to Biden, the longstanding adage that debates are of no import — that they are just a formality, a show, a relic — doesn’t hold water. If that fateful June 27 debate never occurred, for one, Biden would still be the Democratic nominee. And if Biden were still the Democratic nominee, the 2024 presidential race would be altogether different.
Does that mean that our current conception of a debate — a 90-minute, back-and-forth spar, dedicating too little time to too many topics — is the best format? Not necessarily. But it does mean that a clear line can be drawn through that Biden debacle in Atlanta, the subsequent monthlong fallout and the new-look presidential race we have now, two months till Election Day. Elections may not be won or lost by debates, but they sure can be upended by them.
That makes next week’s Harris-Trump showdown all the more captivating. The two campaigns have spent a month debating over the debate’s parameters, after the now-extinct Biden campaign spent months in private negotiations with Trump’s camp. Those initial agreements were initially spurned by Trump after Biden dropped out: “I agreed to debate with Joe Biden,” Trump said, not Harris. Trump’s team later said they wouldn’t agree to debate Harris until she formally became the nominee, in case Democrats were “holding out for someone ‘better.’”
Then, last month, the two campaigns struck a deal: they would meet for an ABC-hosted debate in Philadelphia on Sept. 10, following the same rules Biden and Trump agreed to: no live audience, no written notes, no live microphones when candidates aren’t speaking.
But that last point has become a point of contention. The Harris campaign is pushing hard to unmute the mics, saying in a statement it would “fully allow for substantive exchanges between the candidates.”
“Our understanding is that Trump’s handlers prefer the muted microphone because they don’t think their candidate can act presidential for 90 minutes on his own,” Brian Fallon, Harris’ senior adviser for communications, told Politico.
The Trump campaign, meanwhile, holds that the terms are set — and if Harris can demand a debate because Trump agreed to one with Biden, they argue, she should acknowledge that the rules were part of the deal.
“Enough with the games,” Jason Miller, senior adviser for Trump, said. “We accepted the ABC debate under the exact same terms as the CNN debate.”
As of now, it appears the mics will be muted, as they were in Atlanta in June. Trump, after hinting he would no-show, says he will participate. The stage is set for Tuesday. This time, few will be saying debates don’t matter.
On Labor Day, both the Harris and Trump campaigns tried to pitch themselves as champions of the working class. For the Republicans, it’s an newish pitch with newfound convincingness: the head of the Teamsters spoke at the RNC, and a bevy of self-described pro-labor populists are filling the GOP’s Senate ranks. (One of them is Trump’s running mate.) But is the workers’ rights movement at fundamental odds with the Republican Party’s platform? I’ll save an ideological debate for another day, and leave you instead with this tangible example of the strange bedfellows: the same labor boss that spoke at the RNC and is getting cozy with Republican senators is leading a campaign against some of Trump’s top donors. The Teamsters’ Alliance With the ‘New Right’ Was Never Going To Work (Eric Boehm, Reason)
With two months until Election Day, the White House is increasingly trying to demonstrate Harris’ presence in the administration — by quite literally noting her presence. Politico reviewed pool reports, readouts, briefing transcripts and other White House documents dealing with Biden’s interactions with foreign leaders over the past several months. It found that mentions of Harris have escalated dramatically since late July when Biden ended his reelection bid. For example: between the Oct. 7 Hamas attack and Biden’s decision on July 21, there was no mention of Harris in any readouts of calls between Biden and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu; in the weeks since, a concluding line — “Vice President Harris also joined the call” — has become common practice. Name checking a VP is “unusual,” this story reports, and “suggests an attempt to buttress her credentials” ahead of November’s election. The White House wants you to know: Harris was in the room (Eric Bazail-Eimil, Politico)
The much-discussed “vibe shift” that accompanied Harris ascension to the top of the Democratic ticket is starting to show up in polls. The share of Americans who say the country is on the right track is as high as it’s been since 2021, according to a WSJ poll. The biggest movers? Democratic voters, who recorded a 13-point jump since early July. Hardened Voter Pessimism About America’s Trajectory Begins to Soften (Sabrina Siddiqui, Wall Street Journal)
See you on the trail.
Editor’s Note: The Deseret News is committed to covering issues of substance in the 2024 presidential race from its unique perspective and editorial values. Our team of political reporters will bring you in-depth coverage of the most relevant news and information to help you make an informed decision. Find our complete coverage of the election here.