WASHINGTON (AP) — The second general election debate of the 2024 campaign season is here, but it’s the first matchup for the current nominees.
Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump are taking part in Tuesday night’s debate in Philadelphia. After a disastrous performance in the first general election debate of this cycle in June, President Joe Biden ended his reelection bid, upending the campaign in its closing months and kicking off the rapid-fire process that allowed Harris to rise as Democrats’ nominee in his place.
Here’s how to watch the debate:
The debate will start at 9 p.m. EDT Tuesday and is expected to last 90 minutes. It’s being moderated by “World News Tonight” anchor David Muir and “Prime” anchor Linsey Davis.
ABC News is carrying the debate live on its broadcast network as well as its streaming platform ABC News Live, Disney+ and Hulu. Several networks have also agreed to carry the event live.
The second general election debate of this cycle is taking place at the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia. As was the case for the June debate, there will be no audience present.
Pennsylvania is perhaps the nation's premier swing state, and both candidates have spent significant time campaigning across Pennsylvania. Trump was holding a rally in Butler, in western Pennsylvania, in mid-July when he was nearly assassinated by a gunman perched on a nearby rooftop. Harris chose Philadelphia as the spot where she unveiled Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz as her running mate in August.
In 2020, it was Pennsylvania's electoral votes that put Biden over the top and propelled him into the White House, four years after Trump won the state. Biden’s victory came after more than three days of uncertainty as election officials sorted through a surge of mail-in votes that delayed the processing of some ballots, and the Trump campaign mounted several legal challenges.
Two candidates — Harris and Trump — will be on stage, and it'll be the first time that they've ever met. It’s also Harris’ first debate since 2020, when she and Trump’s running mate — then-Vice President Mike Pence — debated through plexiglass shields during the COVID-19 pandemic.
With Biden's departure from the campaign after the first debate, there was some concern whether Trump and Harris would be facing off at all. As the vice president wound her way from Biden's running mate to Democratic nominee, Trump said he had made his initial debate agreement with Biden, inserting doubt into whether he would meet Harris on a debate stage.
Then there was the kerfuffle over the muting of microphones — except for a candidate's turn to speak — something Biden's campaign had made a condition of its decision to accept any debates this year. Some aides have said they have come to regret that 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'd rather have mics “probably on,” his campaign agreed to the same mic muting in place for the June debate with Biden.
The current ABC framework for the second debate has the same rules for mic muting, no live audience or written notes.
So far, the candidates have not come to an agreement on meeting again for another debate.
CBS News will host a vice presidential debate on Oct. 1 between Walz and Trump's running mate, Ohio Sen. JD Vance. That event is planned to be held in New York City.
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Meg Kinnard can be reached at http://x.com/MegKinnardAP.
