Kamala Harris emerged victorious from the debate against Donald Trump on September 10 in Philadelphia, according to polls. However, the face-to-face did little to change voters’ voting intentions ahead of the presidential election on November 5. Harris’ campaign believes that a new confrontation could favor her, so she has challenged the former president to another duel on October 23. Harris has accepted the invitation to CNN for that day, but Trump made it clear that he did not want any more debates and again rejected the proposal. “It’s too late” he gave as an excuse at a rally in Wilmington (North Carolina).
The Republican has insisted that he won the debate with Harris and that is why the loser wants a rematch, despite the coincidence of polls and experts to the contrary. Trump attacked the moderators, whom he accused of bias. He said that the debate had been three against one and even suggested without any basis that perhaps Harris knew in advance the questions that were going to be raised. She was, he said, “very familiar with the questions”, which in reality were the usual and predictable ones: economy, immigration, abortion, the war in Ukraine, the war in Gaza… Her insistence that she won – while complaining to the referees for the result – is hardly credible, even more so for someone who does not even recognize that she lost the 2020 presidential election.
Days after the first duel, Trump tried to close the discussion by assuring that there would be no more debates. Now, CNN has invited both candidates to debate in Atlanta (Georgia) on October 23. It would be a return to the place where the current president, Joe Biden, was knocked out in the debate against Trump on June 27 by his own mistakes and lapses.
“The American people deserve another chance to see Vice President Kamala Harris and Donald Trump debate before they vote,” Harris-Walz campaign chair Jen O’Malley Dillon said of the debate on CNN on Saturday. “It would be unprecedented in modern history if there was only one debate in an election. Debates offer a unique opportunity for voters to see the candidates face-to-face and take stock of their contrasting visions for America.”
In the 2020 election, there were two face-to-face contests between Trump and Biden. In 2016, there were three duels between Trump himself and Hillary Clinton. This election is now closed with two debates, the first of which will go down in history for having led to Joe Biden’s withdrawal from the race for re-election.
“Vice President Harris is ready for another chance to share the stage with Donald Trump, and has accepted CNN’s invitation to a debate on October 23. Donald Trump should have no problem accepting this debate. It is the same format and set-up as the CNN debate he attended and claimed to have won in June, when he praised CNN’s moderators, rules, and ratings,” O’Malley Dillon added.
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The former president had already made his position quite clear last week: “THERE WILL BE NO THIRD DEBATE!” he tweeted in capital letters. His campaign initially referred to that statement, assuring that nothing had changed with CNN’s invitation. Trump has confirmed that he will not accept the challenge of October 23. He has given the excuse that early voting is already underway. “The problem with another debate is that it is too late, voting has already started,” he said. “I would love to, in many ways, but it is too late,” he has insisted. In 2020, Trump debated Biden on October 22. In 2016, with Hillary Clinton, on October 19.
Trump voters are generally more mobilized than Democrats and independents, so a second debate could hurt Trump more regardless of who wins. Democrats are not only confident that their candidate can beat Trump on stage again, but they believe that the more voters see the former president’s true face and hear his words, the more it can help them.
