After months of publicly attacking each other, finally today Joe Biden and Donald Trump will have the opportunity to confront their ideas in a debate for the presidency of the United States. The elections, which will take place on Tuesday, November 5, nominate the same two candidates from the last elections in 2020, when the Democratic candidate won.
The first of the two presidential debates will be at 10 p.m. (Argentina time) in the studios of CNN, in Atlanta. The selection of the moderators, political journalists Jake Tapper and Dana Bash, sparked criticism from those running Trump’s campaign, given that both have openly criticized him. Tapper openly compared the Republican to Hitler, while Bash celebrated his defeat to Biden.
A peculiarity of this election is that it is marked by the age of its participants: Trump has just turned 78 years old, while Biden would be 82 when he begins his second term. This generates particularly acute anticipation for the nascent debate, which is occurring much earlier than usual in the presidential race.
An analysis of the diary The New York Times Today it leaves Trump as the winner with 46% of the votes. Therefore, today’s debate could be key for Biden. According to a survey of AP Newsthe majority of American adults plan to watch the debate, with several saying that they think each candidate’s performance is “super important” in determining their votes.
The American two-party system ensures that almost always, at this stage of the competition, there will be two leading candidates. The country has an electoral college system, which means that the winning candidate does not necessarily have to win the popular vote. Being a country made up of 50 states, each state has a number of representatives according to its population. There are a total of 538 voters and to win the elections 270 are needed, one more than half. All electoral points go to the winner of the state: for example, if Trump won Arizona by a margin of 4 points, the 11 points that correspond to the state will go to the Republican candidate.
Polls therefore closely follow the performance of each candidate. There are states that are historically Republican and others that consistently vote for Democrats, such as Texas and California, respectively. Others, such as Michigan and Pennsylvania, are considered “battleground states,” meaning that there are no clear trends in either direction. These territories are usually the main headquarters of the candidates and where a large part of the campaign budget is allocated.
