Kamala Harris and Donald Trump will meet face-to-face for the first time on Tuesday when they take the stage for the US presidential debate.

Harris has improved the position since replacing President Joe Biden as the Democratic leader in July, revitalizing her party’s campaign.

But while the vice president now leads Trump by 2.9 percentage points nationally, according to the Financial Times poll, her lead has narrowed slightly in recent days and the presidential race remains extremely tight.

Here are five things to watch for when the candidates meet for Tuesday’s debate.

Who will look more presidential?

The rules will follow a format similar to the Biden-Trump debate, with the candidates’ microphones turned off while the other speaks and without a live studio audience.

Harris and Trump will face questions from ABC hosts Linsey Davis and David Muir, with two minutes to answer and two minutes to rebut, with one minute extra.

No prepared notes will be allowed.

The spotlight will be on Harris in particular, as Trump is more popular with voters.

“I think the stakes are high for both of them, but more so for Harris,” said Hans Noel, a professor at Georgetown University.

“This is the first time we get to see him speak out and defend himself directly, talk about policy, respond to Trump’s line of attack and all that.”

Who will define Harris?

Both candidates will try to do one simple thing during the debate: define Harris to a voting public that knows far less about him than they do about Trump.

The former president is still honing the lines of attack against his opponent, but polls released over the weekend suggest he may finally be waning her momentum.

Trump has tried to portray Harris as a radical communist.

He also made fun of her behavior, calling her ” Laughing Kamala” .

The debate “is a very big moment” for Trump that he should make the most of, said Republican strategist Kevin Madden.

“He’s going to have 90 minutes to deliver a real focused line of attack on Harris, and that’s going to be better than any 30-second ad that runs 100 times between now and Election Day.”

The event is even more crucial for Harris.

She introduced herself to the public at last month’s Democratic National Convention, but the debate will be an opportunity to tell voters more about her proposals.

Will prosecutor Harris go after the criminal Trump?

Harris has made her experience as a prosecutor a central part of her political identity and has been more willing than Biden to follow Trump in campaigning for his criminal convictions.

“I know the type of Donald Trump,” Harris said in her DNC speech.

“I’ve dealt with people like him throughout my career.”

She energized the crowd by comparing her time chasing “predators” and “swindlers” to the former president’s court appearances and legal troubles.

Economic vision?

The economy remains voters’ top concern as high prices continue to strain their finances.

Harris and Trump will lay out their competing economic visions of how to lower the nation’s high cost of living.

Trump wants to cut taxes, beyond extending the cuts he passed in 2017, increase energy production and cut government spending.

He is also planning to impose sweeping tariffs on imports in a revival of his “America First” economic agenda.

Harris, on the other hand, wants to raise taxes on the wealthy and large corporations to expand the social safety net and give them child care tax credits and tax breaks for small business owners.

It also wants to crack down on price increases, although it has not provided many details, raising concerns about price controls among some economists.

Trump is expected to continue to blame the Biden administration for the high cost of living, while Harris will highlight falling inflation and the millions of jobs created while she and Biden have been in office.

For most of this year, voters have said they trust Trump more on the economy, but last month an FT-Michigan Ross poll showed that had changed, with more trusting Harris on that matter.

Who will be stronger on immigration and abortion flashpoints?

Harris and Trump will try to capitalize on their positions on two issues for American voters: abortion and immigration.

Trump has been defensive of abortion rights and is struggling to define his position as he tries to balance the strong views of religious anti-abortion voters who form a core of his base.

Harris, who has campaigned vigorously for reproductive rights, will try to tie the former president to the Supreme Court’s 2022 overturn of Roe vs. Wade, a move made possible by the appointment of three conservative justices during Trump’s presidency .

The former president, meanwhile, will seek to hit the Biden administration over an influx of immigrants across the US-Mexico border.

He will also try to shift the blame to Harris, who was tasked by the president to address the root causes of Latin American migration.

Taken from “Financial Times”,