Former President Donald Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris have agreed to their first public debate on Sept. 10, the ABC TV network has confirmed.
This will be their first debate since Harris became official presidential nominee for the Democratic Party on Aug. 5, weeks after President Joe Biden gave up on his bid for reelection on July 21.
Trump said at a news conference at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida that agreed to the debate and also proposed two more, with Fox News on Sept. 4 and NBC on Sept. 25.
Harris responded on social media platform X: “I’ll be there on September 10th, like he agreed to. I hope to see him there.” Harris has yet to agree to the other proposals.
In May, Biden and Trump had initially agreed to debate on CNN and ABC, but Trump pulled out of the ABC debate owing to a perceived conflict of interest over a defamation lawsuit Trump had filed in March 19 against ABC and its news host George Stephanopoulos.
The CNN debate with Biden on June 27, didn’t fair well for Biden, and after pressure from fellow Democrats, he later pulled out of the race, nominating Harris as his replacement.
The initial rules for the televised debates were based on a minimum of 15 percent support in two qualifying national polls as stipulated by CNN.
Candidates’ names would also have to appear on a sufficient number of state ballots to reach the 270 electoral votes needed to win the general election, criteria met by both the Republican and Democrat parties.
Independent candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. didn’t meet the initial requirement to appear on CNN but has since said that he has ballot access in more than 40 states. It is not yet known whether he will appear at the ABC debate.
The electoral college is a voting system unique to the United States, in which each state has a number of electors based on that state’s representation in congress. When people vote they are voting for these electors, and the presidential candidate with more than 270 electors wins the vote.
Harris’s official nomination has come just in time for the Democratic National Convention which will be held in Chicago on from Aug. 19–22.
Every four years, the two major U.S. political parties hold their own conventions running up to the presidential elections to officially nominate a president and vice president to run for their party.
The Republican National Convention was held on July 15–18.
Presidential debates are a custom in the United States, with nominees discussing their responses to a range of current topics. Usually a few are held late in the campaign leading up to the election. This year’s June debate between Biden and Trump was an unusual time for a debate.
