Philadelphia It's only fitting that Tuesday night's debate between Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Trump is being held in Pennsylvania, a key battleground state in the general election.
Harris and Trump will face off at 9 pm ET at the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia, the Keystone State's largest city. The debate will be the first, and likely only, face-off between Harris and Trump.
Both candidates have made multiple stops in Pennsylvania this summer. Pennsylvania is one of seven key battleground states that determined the outcome of the 2020 election between President Trump and President Biden, and along with Michigan, Wisconsin, Georgia, North Carolina, Arizona and Nevada, Pennsylvania is likely to determine who wins the presidential election in November.
Why the Harris vs. Trump debate is so important
Vice President Kamala Harris speaks at a campaign event at IBEW Local 5 in Pittsburgh on September 2, 2024. (Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images)
Both campaigns and allied super PACs are pouring money into all seven states, but more is being spent on advertising in Pennsylvania than in any other battleground state, and in the final eight weeks leading up to the Nov. 5 election, both campaigns are spending more on future ad inventory in the Keystone State than any other battleground state, according to figures from AdImpact, the nation's top ad tracking company.
Kamala Harris vs. Donald Trump Debate: Live Updates
“This is a state where very few people win after losing a presidential election,” Mark Harris, a longtime Pittsburgh-based Republican national strategist and ad creator, told Fox News Digital. “This is clearly the epicenter.”
“You can see it when you look at the media bookings and the candidates' travel schedules. The Trump campaign and the Harris campaign clearly view this as a must-win situation,” said Harris, a veteran of multiple Republican presidential campaigns.
Former President Trump spoke at a rally at the Cambria County War Memorial in Johnstown, Pennsylvania on August 30, 2024. (AP Photo/Rebecca Droke)
“I don't think there's any other state that's going to have as big an impact as Pennsylvania” when it comes to the race for the White House, Mike Butler, a Pittsburgh-based Democratic consultant, told Fox News Digital.
The leading candidates aren't the only ones campaigning in Pennsylvania: Democratic vice presidential nominee Tim Walz, the governor of Minnesota, and Trump's running mate, Sen. J.D. Vance of Ohio, have also made multiple visits to the state.
Who will speak for Harris and Trump in the debate?
Pennsylvania, along with Michigan and Wisconsin, are three Rust Belt states that make up the Democratic Party's so-called “Blue Wall.”
The party had reliably won all three states for 25 years, until Trump narrowly won them in the 2016 election and took the White House.
Four years later, in 2020, Biden narrowly won all three states, defeating Trump and once again giving the Democratic Party the upper hand.
Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Trump
Fast forward to the present, and Pennsylvania remains a tight race, with the latest polls from the state showing it as a race between Harris and Trump within the margin of error.
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“It's going to be a fight to the end. I think Trump has some advantage,” Harris said, “but it's going to be a very tough fight.”
Butler noted that Pennsylvania has been a close race in the past two presidential elections. “Trump's vote count is pretty much set. I don't think he can do any worse than he did the past two. So that means Pennsylvania is going to be a very tough election,” he said.
ABC News signage is installed in the Media File Center inside the Pennsylvania Convention Center on September 9, 2024, the day before the first presidential debate in Philadelphia. (Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)
This is not the first time the National Constitution Center, which opened 21 years ago and is located at the north end of Independence Mall in Philadelphia's Old City neighborhood, has hosted a presidential debate there.
The venue hosted the 2008 Democratic presidential primary debates.
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