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How Democrat Harris and Republican Trump perform from the City of Brotherly Love could be critical to how about 15 percent of undecided voters in Pennsylvania feel about their choice — assuming they watch or later hear about the debate, a political expert said.
Early voting begins in Pennsylvania on Monday, Sept. 16 and Election Day is just eight weeks away. The Keystone State is the most populous battleground state with 19 electoral college votes on the line.
The debate airs at 9 p.m. Tuesday, Sept. 10 Eastern Time for 90 minutes. ABC News anchors David Muir and Linsey Davis are set to moderate the debate, which will be broadcast by the network and streamed on ABC News Live, Disney+, and Hulu.
Trump, the 45th president of the United States, is scheduled to arrive on Trump Force One at Philadelphia International Airport at 6:30 p.m. on Tuesday evening, his campaign said on its website.
Harris has not had many public chances to show how she operates on the fly while Trump is considered a "pro" on television. Harris is preparing in Pittsburgh at the Omni William Penn Hotel after joining President Biden, a native of Scranton, in that city for a Labor Day rally.
A "bad" performance on Tuesday would hurt either candidate in a razor-thin election nationwide.
"There's a sizable number of people who could still change their minds," Berwood A. Yost, director of the Franklin & Marshall College Poll told Daily Voice on Monday, Sept. 9.
An August 15 poll released by the college found that Harris led Trump by 46 to 43 percent of the vote with a margin of error of plus-minus 4 percent. About 950 registered voters were sampled, Yost said.
Poll results released on Sept. 5 analyzed the undecided voters from the August 15 poll: "The competitiveness of the 2024 presidential race and the narrow margin between the candidates in battleground states like Pennsylvania has created massive interest in voters who are undecided about their preferences," Yost wrote in his newsletter.
As Biden’s running mate in 2020, Harris debated against then-Vice President Mike Pence.
And during the 2020 Democratic presidential primaries, Harris confronted Biden over his relationships with segregationist Democratic senators and his initial opposition to school busing. Harris talked about a little girl who rode the bus to integrate the public schools. “That little girl was me,” she said.
Trump shined in the 2016 Republican primary debates when he gave his opponents unflattering nicknames. Trump skipped the primary debates in 2024 and starred again, at least among staunch supporters, during President Biden’s poor debate performance in June.
"The persuadable voters in this race are defined along ideological and partisan lines. Ideologically, nine in ten liberals and conservatives say they are certain about their vote choice, with only about two percent of them saying they are still deciding how they will vote," Yost said.
But perhaps more interestingly, about one in six (17%) of moderates say "they are still deciding, and about six percent of them say they don’t know. Moderates make up the largest ideological share of the state’s voters and, by these estimates, one in four of them are likely still in play," Yost said.
Harris' vice presidential running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, just finished a two-day campaign tour in the Commonwealth, while Trump went to Harrisburg for a Fox News Channel Town Hall meeting last week. Trump's vice presidential running mate, Ohio Senator J.D. Vance, toured businesses in Erie.
The main reasons that Harris voters are supporting her candidacy include anti-Trumpism (18%), women’s rights (17%), character (15%), partisanship (13%), and democracy (13%), the Aug. 15 poll found.
The top reasons voters provide for supporting Trump include economic policy (29%), immigration (20%), and partisanship (19%).
"More voters believe Vice President Harris has better judgment, is more trustworthy, and is closer to their views on values issues than Mr. Trump, while more voters believe Mr. Trump is better able to handle the economy," Yost wrote in the college's political newsletter.
The next Franklin & Marshall poll is expected to be released on Thursday, Sept. 19.
"We're in the field right now," Yost said on Monday.
ALSO SEE: Read about the Rules of the Harris-Trump debate in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette by clicking here or NPR by clicking here.
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