The campaign season that seemed so unending not so long ago is down to a mere sixty days. With many outlets calling this horse race a dead heat, the debate scheduled for next Tuesday may be the last real chance Donald Trump and Kamala Harris will have to score points with undecided voters. WOR White House correspondent Jon Decker appeared on 710 WOR’s Len Berman and Michael Riedel in the Morning program to break down what’s at stake for the candidates as they prepare to go at it in Philadelphia.
“We’re two months exactly from the election,” Decker told Berman and Riedel. “When you think about all the battleground states- Michigan and Wisconsin, I would put them right now in Kamala Harris’s column. I can’t say what’s going to happen in Pennsylvania, North Carolina, Georgia, Arizona or Nevada right now, but let’s see what happens. I believe that next Tuesday night’s debate in Philadelphia will change things up, the way that undecided voters potentially view Kamala Harris. We saw how that first debate on June 27th was a game-changer- forced Joe Biden out of the race- and we’ll see what happens Tuesday night in Philadelphia.”
While Decker feels each candidate knows what they must do to win at the podium, Trump may have a harder time sticking to the plan of attack. “He can certainly bring a contrast, and I think that’s necessary in any debate, but the personal stuff he needs to stay away from, and that’s the big unknown. Can Donald Trump remain disciplined, which he’s not been able to do often against female opponents? You may recall the three debates that he had against Hillary Clinton in 2016. I think it would behoove him to just focus on policy, because there are winning [positions] that Republicans have on the issues of policy. That’s the reason why this race is so close.”