Voters may not have another chance to see Harris and Trump debate each other on the major issues of the campaign cycle, as the former president maintains that it’s “too late” for another faceoff.
But some Republicans are still holding out hope that the notoriously unpredictable Trump could change his mind — either in response to goading or a chance for a better, more disciplined performance.
“We’re in a very tight race. I like where President Trump stands,” Steve Cortes, a former adviser to Trump, told The Hill. “However, I think any of us who do polling, who read polling carefully realize that this race is super, super tight and in that environment, I don’t think we should skip an opportunity to speak in front of a super large audience of Americans.”
The ABC News-hosted debate earlier this month drew about 67 million viewers. Harris was largely considered the winner, after baiting Trump into defending himself over his rally crowd sizes, his family’s wealth and other personal digs. But polls showed little movement after the candidates left the stage.
Harris has a 3.9 percentage point lead over Trump in polls nationally, according to The Hill/Decision Desk HQ tracker, but forecasters note that neither candidate has a clear path to the 270 electoral votes needed to win the White House.
Harris has accepted a CNN invitation for a rematch against Trump next month, but the former president has so far declined.
“There’s more to talk about,” Harris said during a recent event in New York.
Trump has pointed to states that have started early voting and argued that the time has passed for another debate. He also has repeatedly noted that he debated President Biden before Biden ended his reelection campaign this summer.
“She’s done one debate. I’ve done two. It’s too late to do another. I’d love to, in many ways, but it’s too late,” Trump said at a North Carolina rally this week.
Trump also has railed against the chance to debate Harris on social media, claiming he won the previous match.
“When a prizefighter loses a fight, the first words out of his mouth are, ‘I WANT A REMATCH,’” Trump wrote in a recent post on Truth Social. “There will be no third debate!”
Meanwhile, the Democratic National Committee has been following Trump with a mocking billboard campaign branding him a “chicken” over the debate dispute with an image of his face on a chicken’s body.
“It wasn’t so long ago that Donald Trump boasted he’d debate ‘anytime, anywhere,’ but after Vice President Kamala Harris held him to account for his failures as president and dangerous second term agenda in their first debate, it’s no surprise Trump’s turned chicken — too scared to face the music again,” DNC spokesperson Abhi Rahman said.
This year marked the first time in decades that presidential candidates eschewed the nonpartisan Commission on Presidential Debates, which has been the primary organizer of debates that have typically taken place on college campuses.
Under the Commission’s proposed 2024 schedule, the candidates would have been scheduled to debate for the final time at the University of Utah in Salt Lake City on Oct. 9.
Republican vice presidential candidate Ohio Sen. JD Vance and Democratic rival Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz will take part in their only scheduled debate next Tuesday.
VP debates are often noted as having little impact, beyond viral video moments, like when a fly landed on then-Vice President Pence‘s white hair as he went head-to-head against Harris four years ago. But pundits already are stressing the potential importance of the CBS-hosted event this year.
“It’s going to be the most important vice presidential debate, I think, in U.S. history, when we put Walz against Vance,” presidential historian Douglas Brinkley said Tuesday during an appearance on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe.” “That’s coming our way, and it may be the last chance Trump has if somehow Vance can score points and get an edge out of that.”
