In a margin of error race with eight weeks to go until Election Day and early voting getting underway this month in some crucial battleground states, it is hard not to underscore the importance of Tuesday's debate between Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump.
"It’s going to frame the race in people’s minds and have a decisive impact," veteran GOP strategist and Republican Jewish Coalition CEO Matt Brooks told Fox News Digital.
Republican consultant and Fox News contributor Ari Fleischer emphasized that there is "a lot at stake in this debate."
While Trump is a very well known commodity in the minds of American voters, they are considerably less familiar with Harris.
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"For the first time people are really going to get to see her and whether she can stand on her own two feet," argued Fleischer, a White House press secretary under then-President George W. Bush.
Harris and Trump will share the same stage at Philadelphia's National Constitution Center in an ABC News debate in their first and perhaps only face-to-face encounter ahead of the presidential election.
Harris has enjoyed a wave of momentum in both polling and fundraising since replacing President Biden at the top of the Democrats' 2024 ticket in July, but Republicans argue Americans' honeymoon with the vice president is subsiding.
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Fleischer's advice for Trump is, "Hit her on policy. Just like you did to Biden in the first debate. That was a disciplined, tough, policy-oriented Donald Trump. I would love to see the same Donald Trump against Kamala Harris."
Brooks highlighted that "on policy the distinctions are sharp and clear. It will be teed up to the American people if we stick to policy. That’s what they’re looking for and that’s what they want to hear about."
Sen. Tim Scott of South Carolina, who was seriously considered a Trump 2024 running mate, told Fox News that the former president "doesn’t need my advice. He just needs to be himself."
Scott said that "I think the American people have mostly made up their minds. Those independents, those uncommitted voters, this debate will show why Donald Trump is the only choice in 2024."
Sen. Tom Cotton of Arkansas, another Trump ally and surrogate, emphasized that "the American people know where President Trump stands. They know what they got when President Trump was president."
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Pointing to the vice president, Cotton charged that "Kamala Harris has tried to run as a blank slate."
When asked what advice he would give the former president, Cotton agreed with Scott that "I don’t think President Trump needs my advice."
"The last time he debated he ended one presidential campaign. I look forward to him doing the same thing…by exposing Kamala Harris’ radical record," Cotton said.
Biden's disastrous performance in his late June debate against Trump instantly fueled questions about his physical and mental abilities to serve another four years in the White House - and spurred a rising chorus of calls from within his own party for the 81-year-old president to end his bid for a second term. Facing increased pressure from fellow Democrats, Biden, in a blockbuster announcement on July 21, ended his re-election campaign and endorsed his vice president.
Harris and Trump are taking vastly different approaches to preparing for Tuesday's showdown.
Harris spent most of the past four days hunkered down in a downtown Pittsburgh hotel, taking part in an intensive "debate camp," which included numerous mock debate sessions.
Trump spent much of this past weekend at his golf club in Bedminster, New Jersey, taking part in less formal "policy sessions" with aides and allies. However, Trump also traveled to swing state Wisconsin on Saturday to headline a campaign rally.
"It’s really important for Donald Trump to know the playbook," Fleischer emphasized. "He needs to know Kamala Harris’ positions that she took in 2019 and 2020 about gun confiscation, about likening the border patrol to the KKK, ending fracking, ending offshore oil drilling. He needs to know her positions, and that requires studying ahead of time."
When asked about the former president's preparations, Trump campaign national press secretary Karoline Leavitt, in a Fox News interview, said "let me tell you, President Trump is ready."
Biden's halting delivery and uneven responses in the first debate gave Trump an almost unhindered ability to make his case.
However, it is unlikely the 78-year-old Trump will have such free-range against the 59-year-old Harris, a veteran prosecutor who served as San Francisco district attorney and California attorney general before winning election to the Senate in 2016.
A big question heading into Tuesday's debate is how Trump will react if Harris gets under the former president's skin, by going on offense and calling him out over his likely insults and misstatements.
"With President Trump, you never know what you’re going to get. There’s always an element of surprise, which is what makes him so authentic and real. But there can be risks to that," Fleischer noted. "I’m hoping he’s going to be the same person he was against Joe Biden with that disciplined debate. He already knocked one Democrat out of the race – Joe Biden. Maybe he can do it twice."
