Democratic President Joe Biden and his Republican predecessor Donald Trump, almost tied in the polls, face each other on Thursday in the first debate of the US presidential election in November, after months of verbal attacks.
Millions of Americans will be watching this tense face-to-face contest starting at 9 p.m. Eastern Standard Time in Atlanta, Georgia, one of the most hotly contested states in the election.
It may interest you: Where to watch and at what time will the presidential debate between Biden and Trump be?
The 81-year-old Democrat and the 78-year-old Republican are neck and neck in the polls.
According to a poll released Wednesday by Quinnipiac University, Trump is leading Biden for the first time, with 49% to 45% of the vote nationwide. Another poll released Sunday by Fox put the Democrat in favor (50% to 48%).
Both candidates hope that the hour and a half confrontation will allow them to win votes among the undecided, which could be key in November.
Democrats have paid for billboards in Atlanta, Georgia’s capital, where the debate will take place, welcoming Trump as a “convicted felon” in favor of justice.
Other ads warn of the former president’s “extremist program” and describe him as a danger to democracy, with images of his supporters’ assault on Congress three and a half years ago.
On his Truth Social network, Trump returned the ball by accusing Biden of being “a threat to democracy and a threat to the survival and existence of the country.” And in a statement his campaign team accused him of lying to citizens about security on the border with Mexico and migration.
Biden is presenting himself as the guarantor of democracy against a temperamental rival, prone to false digressions, who never acknowledged his defeat in 2020.
Strict rules
The debate will be moderated by two CNN journalists, Jake Tapper and Dana Bash, following strict rules.
In an attempt to avoid the cacophony of the first debate of 2020, during which Biden and Trump spent an hour and a half shouting and interrupting each other, the network will turn off each candidate’s microphone when their allotted time for answers ends.
The programme will also be held without an audience or a teleprompter, a device that allows speakers to read texts without taking their eyes off the camera.
Biden, the oldest president in the country’s history, spent days preparing for the debate with his advisers. He will have to reassure the country, more concerned about his aging than that of his opponent, even though Trump is only three years younger.
Contrasting visions
These elections confront two radically opposing visions of the United States that revolve primarily around purchasing power and migration.
Biden is trying to distance himself from his rival’s rhetoric, which accuses migrants, many of them Latin Americans, of “poisoning the blood” of the country.
This Thursday’s debate will be exceptional in every sense.
Never before have Americans had to decide between such old candidates or weigh whether to entrust the keys to the White House to a former president convicted in a case of secret payments to a porn star and who faces a prison sentence.
They have another option: independent candidate Robert Kennedy Jr., who is denouncing his exclusion from the debate.
The nephew of assassinated former President John Fitzgerald Kennedy, who has very little chance of winning, will hold an event on Thursday in Los Angeles, California, which will be broadcast live on the X platform.
A second debate is scheduled for September 10, two months before the elections.
