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Will the presidential debates move the needle?
By Colby Etherton
On June 27, 2024, President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump had their first of two scheduled debates, bucking tradition. Typically, the Commission on Presidential Debates sponsors and produces three debates between presidential candidates and a vice-presidential debate
The election is a dead heat between both candidates, though notably there are a lot of undecided voters according to polling — perhaps a testament to how deeply unpopular both Biden and Trump are. According to a recent Reuters/Ipsos poll, 20 percent of voters are undecided. That’s a staggering number that towers above-undecided numbers in previous elections. In theory, that posits an opportunity for the debates to actually move the needle and, well, matter. It’ll be interesting to see how polling evolves in the weeks following this first debate.
The second and final debate will be on September 10, 2024, and a potential curveball will be whether or not any third-party candidates qualify. Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. did not qualify for the Atlanta debate on June 27 as he failed to reach 15 percent support in at least four national surveys. Although this election remains close if national and battleground state polling is any indication, it doesn’t take into account the undecided voters who may choose to stay home or vote for a third-party candidate — adding a high degree of unpredictability to the race.
Voters who disapproved of both candidates in 2016 broke in Trump’s favor by a comfortable margin, leaving an open question of whether voters who disapprove of both tend to break in favor of “shaking up” government and bringing in someone new. Should they break for Trump again, that would spell trouble for Biden, who at this point needs to secure a handful of battleground states to hold on to the White House. Central themes of the economy, inflation, immigration, the humanitarian crisis in Gaza, the war in Ukraine, and reproductive rights are likely to be focal points of the campaign.
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![A split photo of donald trump and joe biden.]({"jaw_blog-16_9-small":{"file":"https:\/\/montrosestar.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/05\/OP-ED-170x95.jpg","width":170,"filesize":5520},"jaw_blog-16_9-middle":{"file":"https:\/\/montrosestar.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/05\/OP-ED-270x152.jpg","width":270,"filesize":10556},"jaw_blog-16_9":{"file":"https:\/\/montrosestar.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/05\/OP-ED-475x267.jpg","width":475,"filesize":24764}})
![A man and woman face to face in front of each other.]({"jaw_blog-16_9-small":{"file":"https:\/\/montrosestar.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/04\/OP-ED_Image-170x95.jpg","width":170,"filesize":7676},"jaw_blog-16_9-middle":{"file":"https:\/\/montrosestar.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/04\/OP-ED_Image-270x152.jpg","width":270,"filesize":12716},"jaw_blog-16_9":{"file":"https:\/\/montrosestar.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/04\/OP-ED_Image-475x267.jpg","width":475,"filesize":30064}})
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