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Vice President Kamala Harris’ team has agreed to the conditions of next week’s presidential debate with former President Donald Trump, including the muting of the candidates’ microphones when it is not their turn to speak.
The Harris campaign, meanwhile, reiterated its concerns to the requirement of muted microphones in a letter to ABC News on Wednesday afternoon, stating that they felt the vice president would be “disadvantaged” by the arrangement.
“Vice President Harris, a former prosecutor, will be fundamentally disadvantaged by this format, which will serve to shield Donald Trump from direct exchanges with the Vice President. We suspect this is the primary reason for his campaign’s insistence on muted microphones,” the letter from the Harris campaign to the network said.
“Notwithstanding our concerns, we understand that Donald Trump is a risk to skip the debate altogether, as he has threatened to do previously, if we do not accede to his preferred format. We do not want to jeopardize the debate. For this reason, we accept the full set of rules proposed by ABC, including muted microphones,” the Harris campaign added.
“ABC News officially announced the rules later Wednesday, noting that both candidates had agreed to the format. The network, according to the source familiar, has offered assurances to the Harris campaign that if there is significant cross-talk between Harris and Trump, it may choose to turn on the mics so that the public can understand what is happening, the moderator would discourage either candidate from interrupting constantly and the moderator would also work to explain to viewers what is being said,” CNN reported.
“Pool reporters, who can report on what they hear both sides saying, will also be in the room,” the outlet added.
“Beyond the debate rules published today, which were mutually agreed upon by two campaigns on May 15th, we have made no other agreements,” an ABC News spokesperson told CNN.
CNN added:
Trump, according to ABC News, won a virtual coin flip held earlier in the week to determine podium placement and order of closing statements during the debate. Trump chose to offer the last closing statement, and Harris chose the right podium position on screen.
The Trump campaign had previously accepted the rules governing the September 10 matchup.
ABC’s rules, first shared with the campaigns last month, largely mirror the format of CNN’s presidential debate in June between Trump and President Joe Biden, during which the candidates’ microphones were muted as their opponent spoke. It was a rule that the Biden campaign had insisted on but something the Harris campaign had sought to change after she became a presidential candidate.
The network’s rules also state that there will be no audience, the candidates will not be permitted to have written notes, no staff can visit them during the two commercial breaks and the candidates cannot ask questions of one another.
This comes as a top pollster revealed that Harris’s lead against Donald Trump in the polls is “steadily cutting.”
A recent ActiVote survey, conducted from August 25 to September 2, shows that Harris has a 1.6-point advantage over Trump, with 50.8 percent to his 49.2 percent. This edge is within the poll’s 3.1 percent margin of error.
In the most recent ActiVote poll, which was conducted among 1,000 potential voters between August 15 and 23, she led Trump by five points, but that lead has since shrunk.
“Harris’ poll numbers improved steadily for about three-four weeks after Biden dropped out, followed by a period of two weeks where it hovered around a 5-point lead. In the past five days that 5-point lead has been steadily cut to just under 2 percent,” ActiVote pollster Victor Allis wrote.
Before Harris’s campaign debut, Trump was ahead of Joe Biden both nationally and in each of the seven swing states. But in the days and weeks following Biden’s conclusion of his reelection campaign, surveys indicated that Harris’s candidacy had given the Democratic campaign fresh vitality, surpassing Trump’s advantage nationally and leading in six of the seven swing states.
However, surveys suggest that Harris’ lead is eroding.
For the first time since early August, Trump led Harris in the Electoral College on Friday, according to pollster Nate Silver’s forecast model. Trump had an almost 5-point advantage against Harris (47.3%) according to his estimate, which gave him a 52.4 percent chance of winning the Electoral College.
“Although we wouldn’t advise worrying too much about the difference between a 52/48 race one way versus a 48/52 race the other way—it’s not a big difference—this wasn’t a good day for Kamala Harris in our model, as Donald Trump is the slight favorite for the first time since August 3,” Silver wrote in an update.
Additionally, according to his estimate, the Republicans have gained ground in every swing state this past week—aside from Georgia—by a net of 0.2 to 2.1 points.
He continued by saying that his model had taken into consideration any inflation in the polls caused by an anticipated surge in support for Harris after the Democratic National Convention.
While the two presidential contenders were deadlocked with Bet365 and Ladbrokes, six bookies, including Sky Bet, Paddy Power, William Hill, 888sport, Betfair, and Unibet, ranked Trump ahead of Harris.