WASHINGTON (AP) — The second general election debate of the 2024 campaign season is here, but it’s the first matchup for the current candidates.
Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump will participate in Tuesday night’s debate in Philadelphia. After a disastrous performance in the first general election debate of this term in June, President Joe Biden ended his re-election bid, turned the campaign upside down in its final months and began a fast-track process that saw Harris emerge as the Democratic nominee. place.
Here’s how to view the conversation:
What time is the conversation?
The debate begins at 9:00 PM EDT on Tuesday and is expected to last 90 minutes. It will be moderated by “World News Tonight” anchor David Muir and “Prime” anchor Linsey Davis.
What channel is the discussion on?
ABC News will broadcast the debate live on its broadcast network, as well as on its streaming platforms ABC News Live, Disney+ and Hulu. Several networks have also agreed to broadcast the event live.
Where is the conversation?
The second general election debate of this cycle will be held at the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia. As in the June debate, there is no audience present.
Pennsylvania is perhaps the nation’s leading swing state, and both candidates have spent a lot of time campaigning in Pennsylvania. Trump was holding a rally in Butler, western Pennsylvania, in mid-July when he was nearly assassinated by a gunman perched on a nearby rooftop. Harris chose Philadelphia as the site where he unveiled Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz as his running mate in August.
In 2020, Pennsylvania’s electoral votes put Biden on top, taking him to the White House four years after Trump won the state. Biden’s victory came after more than three days of uncertainty as election officials dealt with a surge in mail-in ballots that delayed the processing of some ballots and several legal challenges to the Trump campaign.
Which candidates are on stage?
The two candidates – Harris and Trump – are on stage, and this is the first time they have met. It’s also Harris’ first conversation since 2020, when he and Trump’s running mate — then-Vice President Mike Pence — spoke through Plexiglas shields during the COVID-19 pandemic.
When Biden left the campaign after the first debate, there was some concern whether Trump and Harris would face off at all. After the vice president flipped his way from Biden’s running mate to the Democratic nominee, Trump said he had made a preliminary debate deal with Biden, raising doubts about whether he would meet Harris on the debate stage.
Then there was the controversy over microphone muting — except for the candidate’s opening remarks — which the Biden campaign had imposed in its decision to approve this year’s debates. Some aides have said they regret the decision, saying voters were shielded from hearing Trump’s outbursts. Harris’ campaign said it wanted all microphones to be live, and while Trump said he preferred the microphones to be “probably on,” his campaign agreed to mute the same microphone during a June debate with Biden.
The current ABC framework for the second debate has the same rules for microphone muting, no live audience or written notes.
So far, the candidates have not reached an agreement to meet again for another debate.
What next?
CBS News will host an Oct. 1 vice presidential debate between Walz and Trump’s running mate, Ohio Sen. JD Vance. The event is planned to be held in New York.
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Meg Kinnard can be reached at http://x.com/MegKinnardAP.
