ATLANTA: President Joe Biden and his Republican rival Donald Trump will meet on Thursday for a debate that will give both candidates an unparalleled opportunity to try to change the political narrative.
Biden, the Democratic incumbent, has a chance to assure voters that at age 81 he is capable of leading the United States through a range of challenges. Trump, meanwhile, at 78, could use the moment to try to move beyond his New York felony conviction and convince an audience of tens of millions that he has the temperament to return to the Oval Office.
Biden and Trump enter the night facing fierce headwinds, including a public tired of the noise of partisan politics. Polls show that most Americans dislike both candidates, and they offer starkly different visions on virtually every key issue. Trump has promised radical plans to change the US government if he returns to the White House, and Biden says his opponent would pose an existential threat to the country’s democracy.
With just over four months until Election Day, their performances have the rare potential to change the trajectory of the race. Every word and gesture will be scrutinized not only for what the two men say, but also how they interact with each other and how they perform under pressure.
“Debates don’t usually change voters’ perceptions in a way that changes their vote: They tend to reinforce, not persuade,” said Kathleen Hall Jamieson, director of the Annenberg Public Policy Center at the University of Pennsylvania and an expert on presidential communications. “What’s special about this debate is that you essentially have two officials about whom voters have very well-formed views. But that doesn’t mean those views are accurate or consistent with what voters will see on stage.”
The debate marks a series of first events
Trump and Biden have not been on the same page or even spoken to since their last debate weeks before the 2020 presidential election. Trump skipped Biden’s inauguration after an unprecedented and failed bid to rebound from Biden that culminated in the Jan. 6 Capitol insurrection by his supporters.
Thursday’s broadcast on CNN will be the earliest pre-election debate in history. This is the first-ever televised general election presidential debate hosted by a single news outlet after both campaigns abandoned the bipartisan Commission on Presidential Debates, which had organized every matchup since 1988.
Under the network’s rules, independent candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. did not qualify.
Seeking to avoid a repeat of the chaotic duels of 2020, Biden has insisted — and Trump has agreed — that the debate be held without an audience and that the network mute the candidates’ microphones when it’s not their turn to speak. There will be two commercial breaks, another departure from modern practice. The candidates have agreed not to consult with staff or others when the cameras are off.
The timing follows moves by both candidates to address nationwide trends toward early voting by moving the political calendar forward. Time will tell whether the advanced schedule will mitigate the impact of any mistakes or cement them in the public mind.
“You have two people who haven’t debated in four years,” said Phillippe Reines, a Democratic political consultant who helped former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton prepare for the 2016 debates with Trump.
Biden and Trump, he said, “don’t like each other, haven’t seen each other,” and are “pretty rusty” ahead of the biggest night of their lives. That pretty much sums up the stakes Thursday.”
Both sides realize what is at stake
The debate comes just days after the second anniversary of the Supreme Court’s overturning of Roe v. Wade, which ended federally guaranteed abortion rights and has put reproductive rights in the political spotlight ever since.
The clash also came just after the Biden White House decided to limit asylum applications at the U.S.-Mexico border in an effort to reduce the number of migrants entering the country. Trump has made illegal immigration a centerpiece of his campaign.
The wars in Ukraine and Gaza hang over the race, as do the candidates’ widely differing views on America’s role in the world and its alliances. Differences in inflation, tax policy and government investment in building infrastructure and fighting climate change will create further contrasts.
Also on the political front: The Supreme Court is on the verge of announcing a decision on Trump’s immunity over his alleged role in the Jan. 6 insurrection, weeks after Trump was convicted in New York of participating in a “hush money” scheme that prosecutors say was designed to unlawfully influence the 2016 election.
Biden spent the week leading up to the debate secluded at Camp David with senior White House and campaign aides, as well as a group of longtime advisers and allies. A mock stage was built at the complex to simulate the studio where the debate would take place, and Biden’s personal lawyer, Bob Bauer, reprised his role as Trump during practice sessions.
Aides say the work reflects Biden’s realization that he can’t afford to perform from his apartment. They say the sometimes dull speaker has risen to the occasion.
“You know this president,” White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said Thursday. “He likes to fight.”
Meanwhile, Trump continued his more unstructured debate preparations, including two days of meetings at his Florida estate, phone calls to allies and supporters, and road test attacks in social media posts and interviews with conservative-leaning media outlets. The disorganized style that is a hallmark of the former president’s often chaotic speeches at rallies can pose a challenge in a regime-driven debate with a tight schedule.
Trump and his aides have spent months chronicling what they see as Biden’s diminished stamina, and in recent days they began predicting that Biden would be stronger on Thursday, a move aimed at raising expectations for the incumbent president.
The candidates have Georgia in mind
Atlanta, the city hosting the debate, has symbolic and practical significance for the campaign, but each side believes what happens there will have a wide resonance.
In 2020, Biden secured Georgia’s 16 electoral votes by just under 12,000 of the 5 million votes cast. Trump urged the state’s Republican leaders to overturn his victory based on false theories of voter fraud, and he was recorded saying he wanted to “find 11,780 votes.” Now he faces state racketeering charges.
Both campaigns held a slew of events in Atlanta leading up to the debate, including competing events at local Black-owned businesses. Trump called into a meeting at Rocky’s Barbershop in the Buckhead community on Friday to talk about his clash with Biden and to ask whether CNN moderators Jake Tapper and Dana Bash would treat him fairly.
Coming out of the debate, both Biden and Trump will head to states they hope to swing their way this fall. Trump is heading to Virginia, a former battleground that has shifted toward Democrats in recent years.
Biden plans to fly to North Carolina, where he is expected to hold his largest campaign rally yet in a state that Trump narrowly won in 2020.