With eight weeks to go until Election Day and early voting set to begin this month in several key battleground states, in an election with a margin of error, it's hard not to underscore the importance of Tuesday's debate between Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump.
“This will shape the race in people's minds and have a defining effect,” Matt Brooks, a veteran Republican strategist and CEO of the Republican Jewish Coalition, told Fox News Digital.
“There's a lot at stake in this debate,” emphasized Ari Fleischer, a Republican consultant and Fox News contributor.
While Trump is extremely well known among American voters, Harris is less known.
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“For the first time, the public is going to really see whether she can stand on her own two feet,” argued Fleischer, who served as White House press secretary under then-President George W. Bush.
Harris and Trump are scheduled to appear together on the same stage at an ABC News debate at the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia in their first, and possibly only, face-to-face encounter before the presidential election.
Harris has been gaining momentum in both polls and fundraising since replacing President Biden as the top 2024 Democratic candidate in July, but Republicans argue that Americans' enthusiasm for the vice president is waning.
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Fleischer's advice to Trump: “Attack her on policy, just like you did with Biden in the first debate. That was a disciplined, tough, policy-oriented Donald Trump. I'd love to see that same Donald Trump take on Kamala Harris.”
“The policy differences are clear. Whether we stick to our guns or not will be clear to the American people. That's what the American people want, that's what the American people want to hear,” Brooks said.
Democratic presidential candidate Vice President Kamala Harris speaks during a campaign rally at EnMarket Arena on August 29, 2024 in Savannah, Georgia. (Win McNamee/Getty Images)
Sen. Tim Scott of South Carolina, who was seriously considered as Trump's running mate in 2024, told Fox News that the former president “doesn't need my advice. He can just be himself.”
“I think the American people have pretty much made up their mind, and for independents and unaffiliated voters, this debate is going to show why Donald Trump is their only choice in 2024,” Scott said.
Sen. Tom Cotton of Arkansas, another Trump ally and surrogate, stressed that “the American people know where President Trump stands. They know what they got when President Trump was president.”
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“Kamala Harris is trying to run with a clean slate,” Cotton said, referring to the vice president.
When asked what advice he would give to the former president, Cotton agreed with Scott, saying, “I don't think President Trump needs my advice.”
“He ended the presidential race in the last debate, and we hope he will do the same by exposing Kamala Harris' radical record,” Cotton said.
MSNBC host and former White House press secretary Jen Psaki expressed concern for President Biden (right) during his infamous debate with former President Donald Trump. (Getty Images)
Biden's disastrous debate defeat against Trump in late June sparked doubts about whether he was physically and mentally capable of serving in the White House for another four years and prompted calls from within his party for the 81-year-old president to not seek a second term. Amid growing pressure from Democrats, Biden ended his reelection campaign in a highly publicized announcement on July 21, saying he would endorse the vice president.
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Harris and Trump are taking very different approaches to Tuesday's showdown.
Harris has spent much of the past four days holed up in a Pittsburgh hotel, taking part in an intensive “debate camp” that included numerous mock debates.
Trump spent much of the weekend at his golf club in Bedminster, New Jersey, participating in private “policy sessions” with aides and allies, but he also headlined a campaign rally in the battleground state of Wisconsin on Saturday.
Republican presidential candidate and former president Donald Trump leaves a campaign event at the Central Wisconsin Airport in Mosinee, Wisconsin, on September 7, 2024. (Scott Olson/Getty Images)
“It's really important for Donald Trump to know the strategy,” Fleischer stressed. “He needs to know where Kamala Harris stood in 2019 and 2020 on gun confiscation, on likening the Border Patrol to the KKK, on repealing fracking, on ending offshore oil drilling. He needs to know where she stands, and that requires him to study up front.”
“Let me be very clear: President Trump is ready,” Caroline Leavitt, national spokeswoman for the Trump campaign, said in an interview with Fox News when asked about the former president's preparations.
Biden's awkward speaking style and incoherent responses in the first debate allowed Trump to make his case largely unhindered.
But it is unlikely that Trump, 78, will take such a liberal stance toward Harris, 59, a veteran prosecutor who served as San Francisco district attorney and California attorney general before being elected to the Senate in 2016.
A big question heading into Tuesday's debate is how Trump will respond if Harris gets aggressive and perhaps irritates the former president by calling out insults and false statements.
“With President Trump, anything's possible. There's always the element of surprise, which makes him authentic and real, but it also carries risks,” Fleischer said. “I'm hoping that he's the same guy he was against Joe Biden and that he'll put on a disciplined debate. He's already taken Joe Biden out of the race. He could do it twice.”
Get the latest 2024 campaign updates, exclusive interviews and more on Fox News Digital's Election Hub.
