Biden announced that he would participate in two debates against his rival, former President Donald Trump, instead of those moderated by the Commission on Presidential Debates, including one at VSU on Oct. 1. It was meant to be the second of three presidential debates in a series that the commission chose, including two other debates in Texas and Utah. VSU would have been the first historically black university to host such an event.

“The Biden campaign is refusing to participate in a historic general election presidential debate at VSU a great university and HBCU. Joe Biden is turning his back on students, Virginians and the nation because he can’t defend his failing policies,” Youngkin wrote on X Thursday. “Huge snub to VSU and the citizens of the Commonwealth.”

Before the president announced he would not participate in the commission’s debates, his campaign chairwoman, Jen O’Malley Dillon, reportedly penned a letter listing gripes with the timing of the debates, among them noting that it was too late in the election year to hold debates. As a result, the commission issued its response at the beginning of this month.

“The CPD purposefully chose September 16 after a comprehensive study of early voting rules in every state,” it wrote in a statement. “In-person early voting in North Carolina does not begin until October 17. On September 16, the day of the first debate, Pennsylvania voters can receive, complete and return ballots at their county boards of elections. Every other state starts early voting later, as of the most recently published information.”

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However the letter also accused the CPD of being “unable or unwilling to enforce the rules,” pointing to the 2020 elections, claiming Trump broke debate rules with no consequences and wasn’t tested properly for COVID-19 before the debate, as he was positive during the event. Over 73 million viewers tuned into that debate.

The Washington Examiner reached out to the Biden campaign, the CPD, and VSU for comment.

The polling released on Thursday by Democratic-aligned public opinion research group Blueprint found most young voters trust Biden over Trump to handle most things, except for two concerns that “may be the defining issues of the 2024 election.” The poll found 52% trust Trump more when it comes to lowering prices and that 53% trust Trump more to secure the border, statistics that gave pollsters pause.

“As we’ve already talked about, young voters are much closer ideologically to Joe Biden than they are to Donald Trump,” Evan Roth Smith, the lead pollster for Blueprint, said. “But, the two biggest issues of this election, inflation and immigration, it’s very notable that with young voters — those are the only places Donald Trump has an advantage, and it’s particularly concerning.”

The polling found that nearly every young voter answered that economic concern was a top issue and as a whole, inflation and the economy were the most frequently prioritized issues, chosen by 73% and 70% of young voters. 

According to the data, just 13% of voters think Biden is most focused on lowering prices. Forty percent of those voters say the Biden administration is most focused on creating more jobs. Meanwhile, 32% of voters said Trump is focused on lowering prices, and the same share, 32%, say Trump is most focused on creating more jobs.

“It’s troubling that one of the things where they’re closest to Donald Trump is on his economic policy,” Roth Smith added. “That’s worrying; that’s very concerning.”

According to the poll, among the lowest-priority issues in the survey are LGBT issues and student loans, which were chosen 38% of the time. Climate change, Israel and Palestinian issues, race relations, and democracy were chosen about half the time. The most prioritized issues were inflation, healthcare, and jobs and the economy, which were chosen 70% or more of the time. 

Experts reviewing the polling results are suggesting Democrats work to get out the word about Biden’s work to address inflation and improve the economy to increase young voter awareness. 

Ashley Aylward, a senior researcher at the Democratic polling firm HIT Strategies, said she’s found the economy and cost of living continues to be young voters’ top issues.

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“They consistently tell us they aren’t able to reach the economic milestones that their parent’s generation or grandparent’s generation were able to, so they are increasingly frustrated,” Aylward said during a briefing with reporters on Thursday. 

Young voters helped deliver Biden his first White House victory in 2020, winning 61% of voters under 30 and 55% between 30 and 44, according to the AP VoteCast survey of the electorate.

In an interview with Scripps News on Thursday, the former president dismissed perceptions that Haley, a former U.S. ambassador to the U.N., posed a serious threat to his reelection campaign.

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“Well, she got very few voters relatively, I mean, I got almost, I guess, close to 90%,” Trump told Charles Benson about Haley’s success in Wisconsin. “She got very few voters. And those voters are all coming to me. And you may have a lot of Democrats in there because they have a very tricky little system.”

“We just did a poll where we’re leading Biden by a lot in Wisconsin,” Trump continued.

Although Trump handily won Wisconsin’s primary last month at 79.2%, Haley showed a decent standing by pulling 76,841 votes or nearly 13% of the vote despite no longer running for president.

Haley’s votes were far more than the nearly 21,000 votes that propelled Biden to defeat Trump in Wisconsin during the 2020 election.

She has continued to get double digits in other state primaries, including in this week’s races in Nebraska, West Virginia, and Maryland.

Haley won 20% of the GOP primary in Maryland, compared to Trump’s 80%. In the reliably red state of Nebraska, Haley won nearly 18% of the vote, while Trump won 80.2% of the vote. In West Virginia, Haley won a little over 9% of the vote as Trump won 88.4%.

In other battleground states such as Pennsylvania, Haley pulled in more than 158,000 votes, or 16.6% of the vote, a sign that her supporters could cost Trump the 2024 race if he doesn’t bring them into the GOP tent.

Trump’s quotes on Haley are notable given President Joe Biden’s attempts to persuade Haley voters to back his campaign.

In late April, the Biden campaign announced a 30-second “If You Voted For Nikki Haley…” ad, part of a six-figure ad buy to court Haley supporters.

“Our campaign has been clear from the beginning that we welcome anyone who knows that four more years of Trump would destroy our freedoms and devastate our country,” Biden campaign communications director Michael Tyler said in a statement at the time.

After this week’s primaries, the Biden campaign again taunted Trump’s problem with protest voters.

“Donald Trump, his barely existent campaign, failed record, and toxic agenda lost tens of thousands of Republican voters to Nikki Haley — who dropped out 69 days ago,” Biden spokesman Ammar Moussa said in a statement Tuesday night. “Trump enters the general election as a weak candidate, unable to build the coalition needed to win 270 electoral votes.”

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Trump and Haley have not spoken since she exited the race one day after Super Tuesday. Haley has also not endorsed her former boss and Trump does seem eager to welcome Haley into his good graces after he nixed a report that she was being considered as his running mate.

Haley “is not under consideration for the V.P. slot, but I wish her well! DJT,” he posted on Truth Social over the weekend.

Biden is beating his opponent in almost every financial metric. The president has raised nearly $160 million to Trump’s $114 million, and he has more donors contributing to his campaign overall. However, raw dollar figures are not always enough to deliver a win in November.

According to a New York Times report, Biden may be lacking financial firepower in key geographic locations. The latest New York Times/Siena poll puts Biden far behind Trump in many key swing states. In the must-win battleground states of Michigan and Pennsylvania, his donors are dipping, as are population centers in North Carolina, a state the Biden campaign has tried to put in play for Democrats this year.

In some key states such as Arizona, notably Maricopa County, which makes up over 60% of the state’s population, and Wisconsin, Biden is heavily increasing donors. Trump is increasing some donors, but notably in non-competitive Republican states such as Idaho and Utah.

Trump, however, is polling ahead of Biden in five of six key states: Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, and Pennsylvania. In Wisconsin, Biden is polling ahead.

Charlotte and Raleigh, North Carolina

Biden lost North Carolina to Trump in 2020 by just over 1 point. Before former President Barack Obama won in 2008, the last time the Tar Heel State chose a Democrat for the presidency was 1976 with Jimmy Carter. Biden’s campaign still believes North Carolina is within reach. In some parts of the population centers of Charlotte and Raleigh, however, the president is losing some donors.

In Charlotte, which is among the 10 fastest-growing cities in the United States, Biden is losing some donors he had in 2020. Many people who are moving to North Carolina are young, minorities, and coming from blue states such as California and New York.

Outside Raleigh, in Durham and Chapel Hill, which are home to Duke University and the University of North Carolina, respectively, Biden is not pulling as many donors as he did in 2020.

Trump, too, is heavily losing donors in Charlotte and Raleigh.

Detroit and Dearborn, Michigan

In Michigan, Biden has 11% more donors than he did in 2020. He is picking up voters in other areas, such as Traverse City and Grand Rapids. In some densely populated areas, however, he is losing donors.

In Dearborn, Biden is not gaining any donors. It is notably the first Arab-majority city in the U.S., with 55% of the population having Middle Eastern or North African heritage. Biden has faced harsh criticism from Democrats there over his handling of the Israel-Hamas war. Statewide, he faced an “uncommitted” protest vote against him, with more than 100,000 people voting against him.

Michigan, as a whole, has the highest number of Arab Americans of any state at 2.1% of the population.

In Detroit, Biden is also not gaining any donors from 2020. Detroit is an important stronghold for a demographic Biden is trying to keep in Democrats’ hands: black voters. According to the poll, Trump has made massive gains with black voters, garnering 20% of their support, which would be the highest for any Republican to receive from African Americans since 1964.

Trump has also dipped significantly in donations from the Detroit and Grand Rapids areas. Still, in 2020, Biden won Wayne County, which encompasses both Detroit and Dearborn, by more than 250,000 votes.

Philadelphia and Pittsburgh

In population centers such as Philadelphia and Pittsburgh, Biden has fewer donors than he did in 2020. It could be worrisome as Pennsylvania is a state Trump narrowly won in 2016 and Biden recaptured in 2020.

In 2020, more than 500,000 people voted for Biden over Trump in Philadelphia County, and in Allegheny County, home of Pittsburgh, Biden was victorious by a large margin.

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Biden has maintained much of his support from older, white voters, and he is the most competitive against Trump in white, northern states such as Pennsylvania.

In neighboring Delaware, Biden’s home state, donors are down as well. This could be because Delaware helped launch Biden’s bid for the presidency in 2020 and that enthusiasm in a primary season was not present this time around.

Like the presidential debates between President Joe Biden and Trump, the vice presidential counterpart is poised to be broadcast in studio without a live audience, on either July 23 or Aug. 13, according to the Biden campaign.

“The debate would be in accordance with the guidelines put forth by the campaign yesterday,” a Biden campaign spokesman told reporters Thursday. “We look forward to the Trump campaign accepting one of these dates so that the full debate calendar for this campaign can be set.”

Trump has not named his vice presidential nominee, though the likes of Gov. Doug Burgum (R-ND) are considered contenders.

Biden and Trump have agreed in principle to debate twice before November’s general election, first on June 27 on CNN in Atlanta and then on Sept. 10 on ABC News. Trump has proposed a third debate on Oct. 2 on Fox News, though the network did not host a 2020 Democratic primary debate, one of Biden’s criteria.

“President Biden made his terms clear for two one-on-one debates, and Donald Trump accepted those terms,” Biden campaign chairwoman Jen O’Malley Dillon wrote in a statement Wednesday. “No more games. No more chaos, no more debate about debates.”

The debate calendar, which had been in doubt, was quickly set this week after Biden responded to Trump’s debate challenge with his own. The former president, however, is still advocating at least four debates to be on the schedule.

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“We believe there should be more than just two opportunities for the American people to hear more from the candidates themselves,” Trump campaign managers Chris LaCivita and Susie Wiles wrote in a memo. “With the soaring inflation of Bidenomics costing America’s hardworking families at the grocery store and at the gas pump, with our border being totally overrun, with chaos at home, chaos across the world, chaos on our college campuses, we should have one debate per month.”

Their agreement marks a break from precedent, with the campaigns directly negotiating the candidates’ debates, instead of through the independent Commission on Presidential Debates.

Trump appeared Wednesday on Fox News’s Hannity to assure viewers that her father-in-law and presidential candidate is prepared no matter what the circumstances of the debates, hosted by CNN and ABC News, will be. Host Sean Hannity suggested that the networks should not use teleprompters as a way to help President Joe Biden during the debate.

“He is unafraid, and so while the scales are always tipped against him, this is not the first time,” Trump said. “… So try, though they might, to rig this thing, which, Sean, they will, he is going to come out on top.”

Hannity pointed out that while Trump has agreed to debate on Fox News as well, Biden has only agreed to “liberal” outlets.

“You’re right,” Trump responded. “It’s rigged so heavily in Joe Biden’s favor, but everything always is. You’ve got Hollywood against Donald Trump, you’ve got the music industry against Donald Trump, mainstream media. Despite that, and even the judicial system at this point, he is beating Joe Biden in every poll out there. It’s amazing to see. So if Joe Biden shows up June 27 and doesn’t come up with an excuse, like he has to wash his hair or something, I have full confidence that Donald Trump will outperform him.”

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The co-chairwoman has documented the bump in RNC fundraising coinciding with the day the former president appeared in a New York courtroom to begin the jury selection for his trial. The campaign raised $1.5 million after the first day and then doubled that amount three days later, and more donations added up to $76 million in April alone.

This comes after the RNC and Trump raised $65.6 million in March. Last month, Trump hosted a fundraiser that fetched $50.5 million, a record for a single political fundraiser. The latest donations continue to close the gap between the two presumptive nominees.

Harris “joked to friends” that she would run for governor in the Golden State when Gov. Gavin Newsom (D-CA) vacates the office in 2026, according to Politico. 

Harris’s camp has denied the reports.

“That did not happen,” Harris spokeswoman Kirsten Allen told the outlet. “This November, the vice president will be preparing to be inaugurated for the second term of the Biden-Harris administration.”

The Vice President has obvious connections to California and might be an instant favorite for the governorship if she ever ran, given her name recognition. Harris served as senator for California from 2017 to 2021 after a six-year stint as state Attorney General. She dominated in her senatorial election in 2016, winning 61.6% against Democratic former Rep. Loretta Sanchez’s 38.4%.

There is no clear frontrunner for the 2026 gubernatorial election yet, however, California newspaper columnist wrote Harris could run into problems in a Democratic primary for governor, as she has in other Democratic primaries in the past.

Harris could also decide to run for president in 2028 instead of the earlier gubernatorial race, a common move for vice presidents. Nineteen of 49 vice presidents have run for president, with six — including Biden — winning. But 54% of survey respondents in a USA Today/Suffolk poll said they think Harris isn’t qualified to be president.

Harris has previously shown interest in the highest office in the United States, saying in a Wall Street Journal interview in February that she is “ready to serve,” if Biden cannot continue as President.

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A presidential run for her wouldn’t be dissimilar to Biden’s path to the White House, though she is much younger. Biden served as a senator for Delaware before taking office as vice president and then being elected president.

The new reporting places more insight into Harris’s future moves if Trump wins in November — an occurrence that appears more likely as the Biden-Harris ticket lags in the polls.

Trump was pushing for debates against Biden, early and often, for most of the year, even before he had locked up the GOP nomination. Biden’s campaign had said there would be debates but did not delve into detailed demands until Wednesday. By noon on Wednesday, Biden and Trump had agreed to debates on CNN in June and ABC in September, in line with the requirements Biden had set in a video released earlier in the day.

Trump had strong fighting words for Biden after accepting his terms, saying the president was the “WORST debater” he had ever faced and to “just tell me when, I’ll be there. ‘Let’s get ready to Rumble!!!'”

The Trump campaign and its supporters had speculated that Biden would not agree to a debate, but one Trump official told Politico that the president agreeing to debate the former president was seen as a victory.

“I think they walked right into a buzzsaw,” the official said. “There was never an understanding that there were even going to be debates. … We got what we wanted: We got debates! Everything else is background noise.”

While the Trump camp has claimed a victory, so has the Biden campaign.

The Biden campaign laid out the ground rules for debates and had all of them granted. Not only did Biden’s team sap Trump of an audience he is so fond of catering to — he refused to agree to a virtual debate in 2020 that would have precluded a live audience — but it also won relatively friendly venues in CNN and ABC. There has been back-and-forth on how many debates the two will have, but it appears as though Biden could claim another victory if they are constrained to just two contests.

“President Biden made his terms clear for two one-on-one debates, and Donald Trump accepted those terms. No more games. No more chaos, no more debate about debates,” Jen O’Malley Dillon, Biden campaign chairwoman, said in a statement, declining Trump’s call for another debate.

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While both men are claiming an early victory in the debates before they have even started, both have risks in agreeing to join the other on a stage to discuss pressing matters. Trump’s performance in the first debate in 2020 and concerns over Biden’s memory problems detailed in special counsel Robert Hur’s report are seen as some of the possible warning signs for both sides.

The first presidential debate is scheduled for June 27 and will be aired on CNN, and the second debate is scheduled for Sept. 10 and will be aired on ABC.

Whether this was the product of careful behind-the-scenes negotiations, as it appeared from how quickly the June CNN debate, in particular, came together, or Trump believing he could not look less eager to debate than Biden, the terms are favorable to the incumbent.

No live audience participation. No interruptions or commentary during the other candidate’s answers. No conservative media hosting or, by first impressions, moderating — old-school networks only. Trump has dubbed even Fox News a “hostile network,” though he was willing to do a third debate there in October, while the Biden campaign is not.

Trump’s ability to turn even the most sterile and sedate environment into something more circuslike cannot be underestimated. But these ground rules seem to work against many of Trump’s proven debate tactics.

Biden taunted Trump in his Wednesday announcement, with the incumbent saying his predecessor had lost both of their debates in 2020. Trump boycotted the Republican primary debates this time around, having mostly dominated them in 2015-16.

“Why would I allow people at 1% or 2% and 0% to be hitting me with questions all night?” Trump told Fox’s Bret Baier last year. Pressed by Newsmax’s Eric Bolling, Trump responded, “It’s not a question of guts. It’s a question of intelligence.”

Just as Trump was able to make the huge 2016 field of established Republican candidates look small in comparison to his reality TV persona, as a former president, he was able to keep the 2024 GOP field from getting on his level by refusing to share a stage with him. Despite “Donald Duck” and “coward” taunts from former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, the only candidate who was able to distinguish herself in Trump’s absence was former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley. She was rewarded with runner-up status and continues to win a nontrivial share of the vote after dropping out but only won two primaries and lost her home state.

Nevertheless, Trump has always clamored for debates with Biden. “Frankly, I think we have an obligation. When you have the final Republican, the final Democrat, you have the two people, you have to debate regardless of polls,” he told Fox’s Laura Ingraham. He said he was happy to do “as many as necessary.”

Trump has consistently cast doubt on Biden’s willingness or ability to debate. “I would like to do it starting now,” the presumptive Republican nominee said in February. “I don’t think [Biden’s] going to debate though. I really don’t think so.”

The former president has been a stickler for debate ground rules in the past. He refused to do a virtual debate in 2020, for example. He also disliked the Republican National Committee not consulting him about networks or moderators for their sanctioned debates this cycle. But Trump appears to believe the contrast between his vigor and the 81-year-old Biden’s will be sufficient to warrant any debate.

This carries a risk for Trump. One is that if he is the candidate who has a verbal flub or shows his age, it could erode one of his major advantages over the Democrat. Also, if Republicans set expectations for Biden too low, as they did before this year’s State of the Union address, it might make it easier for the president to meet or exceed them.

Biden has seldom had major problems in big moments or when he has had time to prepare. The one arguable exception was his hastily scheduled press conference after special counsel Robert Hur’s report described the president as an “elderly man with a poor memory.”

Many thought Trump was too aggressive with Biden in their 2020 debates. It is possible that even if Trump is able to knock Biden off his game, it will come across to voters as nasty. Biden will attempt to use the debates to frame the election as a binary choice between Trump and himself, as opposed to a referendum on his own unpopular presidency.

The risks for Biden are also obvious. His advanced age has become a huge liability in his reelection campaign. His condition may not be as bad as some Republicans make it out to be, but he is still noticeably slowing down compared to a few years ago. Democrats try to console themselves by citing Trump’s senior moments, but many of those come during long, freewheeling, and heavily extemporaneous speeches few professional politicians would even attempt, rather than heavily scripted events. Biden may also need to do more to shake up the race since he is presently trailing.

Both candidates have the added insurance of the debates being so early. The debates’ historical effects on the November results are themselves highly debatable. A debate in June is likely to be a forgotten event by Election Day. Sen. John Fetterman (D-PA) weathered a particularly bad one to win his seat during the midterm elections.

One wildcard is whether Biden and Trump can keep independent candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. out of the debates. That seems a more plausible motivation for the Biden camp blowing up the debate commission than the New York Times report that “Biden aides are still furious that Mr. Trump debated Mr. Biden in 2020 and appeared visibly under the weather, announcing soon after the debate that he had tested positive for the coronavirus.”

Participation in the 1992 debates helped independent Ross Perot remain a major candidate, especially after he abruptly departed and then reentered the race. Ronald Reagan debated independent John Anderson in 1980, but it was widely believed the Illinois congressman would siphon more votes from President Jimmy Carter, who refused to share a stage with him.

It’s not clear which major party candidate Kennedy hurts more. The New York Times cited the “chance that Mr. Kennedy reaches the 15 percent national polling threshold to qualify for the commission’s debates” as a reason Biden wished to forgo them. 

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“The Biden campaign views Mr. Kennedy as a spoiler candidate and people close to the president worry that with the Kennedy name he could attract support from voters who might otherwise support Mr. Biden,” the newspaper’s Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan write, though they also report “mutual interest” from both campaigns in “excluding” Kennedy. 

Yet Kennedy posted on social media on Wednesday night that he planned to meet CNN’s debate eligibility criteria next month.

On Wednesday, the two men agreed to appear onstage twice before the November election, once in June and again in September. But the terms to qualify, set by the two host networks, CNN and ABC News, could deny Kennedy a podium. The Biden and Trump campaigns reportedly back-channeled to cut out the commission that traditionally sets the terms of presidential debates.

Despite polling consistently in the double digits, Kennedy is not thought to have a real chance of winning the presidency in November, in part because he faces an uphill battle to appear on the ballot in all 50 states.

But Kennedy, the former environmental lawyer and son of onetime Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy Sr., is the most popular independent presidential candidate since businessman Ross Perot ran in 1992, and Trump and Biden fear he could play spoiler in unpredictable ways. He is expected to siphon support from both parties, leading each campaign to treat him as a threat.

“RFK is interesting in that he pulls from both candidates versus Perot, who almost exclusively pulled from Bush,” Democrat Stefan Hankin, president of Lincoln Park Strategies, told the Washington Examiner. “It probably is not in the interest of either candidate to have him up there, but for different reasons.”

Kennedy could conceivably meet the 15% polling benchmark set by CNN to qualify for the debate, but he must also have a path to collecting 270 Electoral College votes, which requires him to be on the ballot in enough states.

Kennedy announced last week that he had ballot access in Delaware, in addition to California, Michigan, and Utah. His campaign also claims he has collected enough signatures for Idaho, Iowa, Hawaii, Nebraska, Nevada, New Hampshire, and North Carolina.

Taken together, those 11 states, assuming he won them all, would represent 123 electoral votes.

“[I] don’t think he can mathematically get close to 270,” Hankin said of Kennedy.

The Biden and Trump campaigns, as well as the Democratic National Committee and the Republican National Committee, declined to comment on Kennedy in the context of the debates, but Jen O’Malley Dillon, Biden campaign chairwoman, did underscore the president’s interest in one-on-one debates between Biden and Trump in a statement.

“President Biden made his terms clear for two one-on-one debates, and Donald Trump accepted those terms,” she wrote. “No more games. No more chaos, no more debate about debates.”

Biden also simply smiled at a reporter who asked on Wednesday: “You don’t want to debate RFK Jr.?”

Biden’s demand and Trump’s acceptance of the debates appear to be “less about the debate than general concerns about RFK Jr.’s role as a spoiler,” according to Ed Lee, director of Emory University’s Alben W. Barkley Forum for Debate, Deliberation, and Dialogue.

University of Michigan debate director Aaron Kall agreed that one-on-one debates would help Biden and Trump as they become increasingly critical of Kennedy, but he also argued that third-party and independent candidates, historically, “haven’t really played a part in the process.”

“I think that’s what both campaigns would prefer,” he told the Washington Examiner.

The Biden campaign has attempted to define Kennedy as a fringe candidate associated with the MAGA Right, while the Trump camp highlights his environmental record to paint him as a liberal. Kennedy, for his part, responded to the debate schedule by accusing the two candidates of “colluding to lock America into a head-to-head match-up that 70% say they do not want.”

“Keeping viable candidates off the debate stage undermines democracy,” Kennedy posted on social media. “By excluding me from the stage, Presidents Biden and Trump seek to avoid discussion of their eight years of mutual failure including deficits, wars, lockdowns, chronic disease, and inflation.”

Kennedy later took to X to claim he will reach the participation threshold for the first debate, which will be moderated by CNN‘s Jake Tapper and Dana Bash on June 27 in Atlanta.

The debate hosted by ABC‘s David Muir and Linsey Davis, set at an undisclosed location for Sept. 10, will have similar criteria to qualify as CNN’s. Biden has dismissed the idea of a third debate on Fox News on Oct. 2.

Apart from Kennedy, the debates present risks and opportunities for both Trump and Biden. Emory University’s Lee noted there is a “long and storied” history surrounding debate negotiations as details about the two candidates emerge.

“Each candidate fights for the debate format that features topics, settings, oratorical expectations that accentuate their perceived strengths,” he said.

Biden’s insistence, for instance, on an in-studio debate, as opposed to one with a live audience, is “a smart move,” Lee added.

“Trump is a performer who takes many of his presentational cues from the audience to determine what to say, how he says it, and when he says it,” Lee said. “Some people remain perplexed about what makes Trump such an effective communicator. His genius lies in his ability to make the audience [an] integral part of the show through call-and-response interaction. He feeds off that energy.”

“A debate without a live audience removes that element,” he continued. “It seems the Biden campaign would prefer a much less lively debate and one that allows Trump to be Trump. They are aiming for a boring Biden-Trump debate with a few moments that end up on TikTok. The debate coach in me applauds them for trying to create a debate venue that eliminates one of Trump’s communication strengths.”

According to the University of Michigan’s Kall, the June debate, one of the earliest in modern presidential history, also indicates that the campaigns consider it to be in their best interest to debate based on Biden and Trump’s “advanced” ages.

“They don’t want to make it seem like they’re ducking a debate or there’s anything to hide,” he said.

Meanwhile, Biden maintains it is not because of his underperformance in most national and state polls. Trump is 1 percentage point ahead of Biden in two-person polling, but his lead expands to 3 points when accounting for third-party candidates Kennedy, Cornel West, and Jill Stein, according to RealClearPolitics.

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“Why debate in June? Are you worried about your position in the polls?” one reporter asked Biden on Wednesday.

Biden shook his head no, according to pool reports.