Former President Donald Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris will face off tonight in the first presidential debate of the 2024 election cycle, live from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania on ABC News.
The debate, a “FOX News Democracy 2024: ABC Presidential Debate,” will air on the Fox News Channel. Each is likely to describe his vision for the nation during their efforts to win votes in next year’s election.
Trump revealed at the 2024 Republican National Convention that he has selected Ohio Senator JD Vance for Vice Presidential candidate. Vice President Harris announced last week at the 2024 Democratic National Convention that her Vice Presidential nominee will be Minnesota Governor Tim Walz.
Ahead of the debate, a number of ex-Democrats have come out in favor of Trump.
Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has publicly endorsed Trump and urged voters to do the same. In a video, Kennedy said: “I don’t care what state you live in; California or New York… voting for Donald Trump is the only possible way we can put him and his ideas on Washington D.C.”
The endorsement makes Kennedy, along with former Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard (D-HI), one of only two former Democrats to endorse Trump in the 2024 contest. Both have criticized the leftward lurch of the Democratic Party.
Meanwhile Vice President Kamala Harris has changed her approach to immigration, which is in turn part of a larger Democratic Party repositioning toward the center on an issue public opinion has ebbed during their time out of control under former President Donald Trump.
Harris was a vocal critic of immigration raids in 2016 and promised she would not sign any type of funding bill without protections for DREAMers in 2017. “We need to stop playing politics with their lives,” Harris said. In 2021, she backed a bipartisan border security bill that incorporated new authority for asylum officers and additional provisions to improve public safety.
Donald Trump has also been a critic of President Biden’s attempts at student debt forgiveness, labeling the scheme as one that would be “pressing to get headlines in an election.” His running-mate, Senator JD Vance has similarly expressed his thoughts on loan forgiveness as “a giant windfall to the rich, to college educated.”
The debate sets both candidates up to show what they are punting for in the possible 2024 presidential election.
