The Biden camp displays unfailing confidence, the Trump camp revises its bravado posture: the countdown is on before the first debate on Thursday between the Democratic president and his Republican predecessor.
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“We’re going to win,” the 81-year-old Democrat’s top campaign official, Jen O’Malley Dillon, asserted confidently in a rare interview published Monday by the Puck News website.
She acknowledges, however, that the election is expected to be “very close.”
Joe Biden has regained some momentum in national voting intentions, particularly since a guilty verdict in New York against his opponent, but the 78-year-old Republican appears to be holding the lead in several key states.
The Democrats hope that the hour and a half confrontation planned in Atlanta (Georgia, southeast), in front of CNN cameras, will highlight the contrast between a Joe Biden who is certainly not charismatic, but reasonable and competent, and a predecessor multi-indicted, temperamental and prone to false digressions.
Moreover, it was the Democrat who took the initiative for this early confrontation, who freed himself from the usual procedures and rules. The first presidential debate is usually held in the fall, after the Republican and Democratic nomination conventions.
The meeting should be very tense, between two men who have nothing but contempt for each other, but who have agreed on strict rules.
Special broadcast on LCN, Thursday June 27, from 8 p.m.
Microphone cut
The microphone of the person who does not have the floor will, for example, be cut off on Thursday evening, in order to avoid the same fistfight as the first debate between Donald Trump and Joe Biden four years ago.
The billionaire “is focused on revenge” after his defeat in the 2020 presidential election which he never conceded, “and he has no program to help the middle class”, asserts the narrator of a short video of campaign of the Democratic president, published Tuesday.
The octogenarian president, who has lost his physical presence and oral ease since 2020, will have to reassure an America that is put off by his age, although he is only three years older than Donald Trump.
The Biden camp recorded on Wednesday the official rallying of a former Republican elected official fiercely opposed to Donald Trump, Adam Kinzinger, for whom the former president is “a direct threat to all fundamental values.”
The Trump camp is obviously not left behind, even if it is no longer as bravado as it was a few weeks ago, when Donald Trump promised to make short work of the man he calls “Sleepy Joe”.
The Republican’s supporters know that this smear strategy could backfire, since even an average performance by the current president on Thursday could be considered a victory.
Doping
“In the media, many are already ready to give a trophy to Joe Biden if he manages to stand for 90 minutes,” said Jason Miller, one of the hosts of the Republican’s campaign, on Tuesday. He warns conservatives that Donald Trump will face on Thursday a candidate who has been entrenched since Friday evening with his advisers and who will be “ready”.
The former president even hints that his rival will be “doped” before appearing in front of the cameras.
Donald Trump intends to explain to him in Atlanta “how he puts us back on the right track in terms of inflation, how he secures our southern border, how he puts an end to endless wars (in the world) and cleans up our cities”, said Jason Miller said.
So far, this presidential election, pitting two radically different visions of America against each other, has not aroused overwhelming interest among voters, who know the two protagonists only too well.
According to a poll published Wednesday by the Associated Press in cooperation with the University of Chicago, 57% of Americans intend to follow the debate closely or from afar.
But they also say, in similar proportions, that they are disappointed with the choice offered to them: 56% are unhappy to see Joe Biden as a candidate, and 55% feel the same way about Donald Trump.
A second debate, this time organized by the ABC channel, is planned for September.
