The first U.S. presidential debate of 2024 will be a tough act to follow: It was arguably the most consequential in the country’s history, leading to President Joe Biden quitting the race. Still, Vice-President Kamala Harris’s showdown with former president Donald Trump on Tuesday, the second and final scheduled clash of the campaign, could be a pivotal moment. With the election seemingly deadlocked, motivating even small slivers of voters to get to the polls – or discouraging them from voting for the opposing candidate – could decide the outcome.
For Mr. Trump, whose political career has survived criminal convictions, civil findings of business fraud and sexual abuse, and a riotous attempt to overturn the previous election, the major question will be whether he can deliver a relatively focused message, or whether he will display his usual uncontrolled bombast. For Ms. Harris, it will be whether she can keep this past summer’s surprising social-media momentum going – and perform in unscripted exchanges.
The debate starts at 9 p.m. (ET) on ABC, broadcasting from the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia.
How to play debate-night bingo
They said the stakes of Tuesday’s debate couldn't be higher. They were wrong. Find a friend (or a mortal enemy). Each of you claims one of the two boards below, which we've formatted into a printer-friendly PDF for your convenience.
As you watch the debate, mark a red square each time Donald Trump does one of the things described, ditto the blue squares for Kamala Harris. First to get five in a row (including the free centre space) shouts “bingo!” and wins supreme executive authority for four years.
Debate bingo board: Player 1
Debate bingo board: Player 2
Issues to watch on debate night
Democracy
Arguably, Mr. Trump’s efforts to overthrow Mr. Biden’s 2020 victory and his promises to concentrate as much power as possible in his own hands are the election’s most existential issues. But it’s unclear how much regular voters care about the broad contours of the political system compared with more immediate policy pledges.
Harris
Ms. Harris has zeroed in on Project 2025, a governing plan created by the Heritage Foundation think tank for Mr. Trump, as evidence that the former president is plotting an authoritarian takeover. She will look to treat the issue with the gravity that the Democrats think it deserves, but may try to bring some of the mockery that her nominating convention employed against Mr. Trump. The dismissive branding of Mr. Trump as “weird” and “unserious” has signalled a communications shift away from Mr. Biden’s earnestness.
Trump
Mr. Trump continues to push the lie that the 2020 election was fraudulent, a tack that excites his base but turns off everyone else. He also insists that criminal proceedings against him amount to political persecution. How hard he pushes these narratives, and whether he can follow his advisers’ guidance to pivot to more popular issues, will largely determine what sort of night he has.
The former president has also distanced himself from Project 2025, though he has promoted many of its ideas, mostly related to firing civil servants and cleaning house at national-security agencies.
Project 2025 is a conservative think tank's plan to stack U.S. government institutions with Trump loyalists and remove checks on the president's power. It has galvanized left-wing voters who see it as authoritarian.Adrees Latif/Reuters
Character
In a predebate contretemps, Ms. Harris tried and failed to reverse a rule originally demanded by Mr. Biden: that candidates’ microphones be muted when it is not their turn to speak. The campaign’s apparent calculation was that Mr. Trump would annoy voters with intemperate interruptions. It also previewed part of the Vice-President’s debate strategy.
Harris
The Democratic candidate’s standard stump speech portrays Mr. Trump as a crime boss, contrasted with her history as a district attorney. Look for her to raise this on Tuesday. It’s a tactic that has the added benefit of blunting Mr. Trump’s “tough on crime” messaging. Watch also for her to bait the thin-skinned Mr. Trump in hopes of an outburst that makes him look unfit to lead. She, meanwhile, will try to balance the cheery persona that has served her well on the campaign trail with the seriousness she accuses Mr. Trump of lacking.
Trump
Whether the former president can restrain himself is the largest open question for him. He notoriously shouted down both Mr. Biden and the moderator in a 2020 debate (in which an exasperated Mr. Biden admonished him to “shut up”). But Mr. Trump turned in a comparatively focused performance this past June. Another question is whether Mr. Trump will make an issue of Ms. Harris’s race, such as by questioning her Black identity or mocking her Sanskrit first name, both of which he has done in recent weeks.
For asylum seekers, like these ones watching June 27's Trump-Biden debate from Tijuana, much depends on the next president's plans for immigration and the U.S.-Mexico border.Aimee Melo/Reuters
On foreign policy, Ms. Harris has come under criticism from pro-Palestinian demonstrators, like these ones near the Democratic National Convention in Chicago.John Moore/Getty Images
Immigration and foreign policy
Nationalism is the connecting thread of Mr. Trump’s ideology. It finds expression in both his foundational issue – the U.S. border with Mexico – and in his isolationist approach to foreign policy.
By contrast, Ms. Harris is a liberal internationalist balancing competing imperatives within her own party on both fronts.
Harris
Ms. Harris will likely hit on Mr. Trump’s seeming ambivalence toward defending Ukraine from Russia’s invasion, perhaps invoking the legacy of Ronald Reagan. Harder for her will be articulating a position on Israel and Gaza. While she has stuck with U.S. support for Israel, she has tried to win over pro-Palestinian voters by calling for a ceasefire.
Expect her also to hammer Mr. Trump for tanking a Biden-backed bill that would have imposed tighter restrictions on migrants. She will probably gloss over the fact that the bill would also have helped build part of Mr. Trump’s wall.
Trump
The former president cares about no issue like he cares about the border. He will almost certainly claim that migrants are causing the U.S. every imaginable problem. He will probably also repeat his evidence-free assertion that other countries are deliberately dispatching criminals and terrorists to the U.S. Expect him to be equally unabashed in his support for Israel.
Ukraine will be much harder for him. He has promised an end to the war but has revealed no specific plans, raising fears that he would put pressure on Kyiv to surrender.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has dealt with both Mr. Trump and Ms. Harris for years, but it's not yet clear what Ottawa could glean about their Canada policies on debate night.Martin Mejia/AP; Alex Wong/Getty Images
CanCon klaxon
One has arguably the strongest connection to Canada of anyone to ever seek the U.S. presidency. The other counts a major trade deal with Ottawa as the pride and joy of his stint in the White House. But whether either will mention the Great White North is a great unknown.
Harris
Ms. Harris lived in Montreal throughout her adolescence (she even did a year of CEGEP) while her mother was a cancer researcher at McGill.
But the Vice-President has tended to engage in flagrant Canada erasure. In her convention speech, she twice referenced episodes in her life that had taken place north of the border but elided the location: “Wherever our parents’ jobs took us” was one placeholder.
Not that it’s surprising. U.S. parochialism dictates that referencing one’s history with a foreign country is pretty much political anathema – just ask Calgary’s own Ted Cruz.
Trump
Ending NAFTA and replacing it with USMCA, even though they are essentially the same trade deal, is one Canadian-linked policy that Mr. Trump might crow about.
What Ottawa will be watching for is whether he says anything about renegotiating USMCA, or about his promised 10-to-20-per-cent tariff on all goods coming into the U.S. Such a move would spell economic disaster for Canada and inflict pain in the U.S, too. Like closing down the southern border, trade protectionism remains central to his political brand.
Abortion rights and fossil fuels are among the many wedge issues that Ms. Harris and Mr. Trump can press as they try to win over undecided voters.Alex Brandon/AP; Andrew Harnik/Getty Images
Abortion, guns, climate and economics
Given the obvious contrasts between Mr. Trump and Ms. Harris, the utility of even having a debate may seem dubious. The pair will, however, have ample opportunity to press on several specific wedge issues that could move just enough votes to make the difference.
Harris
The Vice-President is promising to protect abortion rights, champion gun control and fight climate change. Less clear is how exactly she will do all of these things. At the Democratic National Convention, she seemed to calculate that the important thing was simply to promise not to do what Republicans would. Whether she will use the debate to outline more specifics remains to be seen.
She will also have to address inflation and her penchant for embracing some of Mr. Trump’s own more popular economic promises, such as eliminating taxes on tips.
Trump
Mr. Trump has made clear his disdain for efforts to move the U.S. off fossil fuels and he, like most Republicans, sees easy access to guns as an article of patriotic faith. He will likely also blame Ms. Harris for inflation and get in at least a few claims that she is secretly a communist.
He can be expected to be less forthcoming on abortion, where he has simultaneously claimed credit for killing Roe v. Wade and opined that some of the resulting abortion bans go too far.
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