THE first of three television election debates between President Donald Trump and Joe Biden will take place tomorrow night.
It comes amid continuing controversy over Trump’s nomination of conservative judge Amy Coney Barrett for the vacant seat on the US Supreme Court.
On Saturday night, just eight days after the death of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Trump announced the nomination of Judge Coney Barrett, whose appointment needs confirmation by the Senate.
This is a process that usually takes months, but Trump and his Republican senators want to see it done in the remaining 36 days of the campaign.
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Polls in the USA yesterday showed that the nomination of an avowed right-wing judge had not given the boost to Trump that he had hoped for.
It has been suggested that Trump is anxious to get Coney Barrett onto the Supreme Court in case he challenges the result of the election if he loses.
The voting to confirm her appointment will likely start on October 12, and Trump says that he expected a full Senate vote before the election on November 3. He said: “It’s going to go fast. We’re looking to do it before the election. So it’s going to go very fast.”
His refusal to state that he will accept the result of the election has also backfired, according to several political commentators, and may inspire more Democrats and undecided voters to vote against him.
World Politics Review author Frida Ghitis wrote: “Whatever Trump has in mind, there is only one sure way to prevent a disaster that could engulf the entire country: a landslide victory for Biden would make it more difficult for Trump to remain in office by leveraging the courts, Congressional Republicans, and even the bands of extremists roaming anti-racism protests aiming to spark more chaos. A decisive electoral result could defang Trump’s post-election troops.”
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Many Democrats are anxious that Trump’s background in television will give him an advantage over Biden in tomorrow night’s debate, yet others look back to Biden’s performance in the vice-presidential debate in 2012, when he trounced his Republican opponent Paul Ryan.
It will help Biden that the debate is head-to-head, Bob Shrum, a veteran Democratic strategist, told the Guardian: “He was terrific in the 2012 vice-presidential debates and I think that would be a better model for this than where he had ten people or eight people on stage.”
Bill Daley, a former chief of staff to Barack Obama, commented: “The first one is almost the whole ball game because we have a polarized country. Everyone knows who they’re going to vote for except for a small group of people and they’ll watch the first debate and make a judgement.”
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