It was billed as the great debate of the 2024 US election – the electoral equivalent of Muhammad Ali and Joe Frazier’s epic boxing clash in the early 1970s. Kamala Harris in the Democratic Party’s blue corner, Donald Trump blazing a trail in Republican red, and the date set for 10 September.

A difference with fighting sports, alas, is that the rules of debating are a lot more fungible than a referee’s points scoring. That, and the changing backdrop of the US election outlook since Harris secured the Democrats’ nomination, has cast the September clash into doubt.

This week, an argument about whether the format should include muting microphones (or not) has turned into a psychological battle between the two camps – a debate about a debate.

Both have much to gain and lose by meeting in a studio in front of a mass audience. What is no longer in doubt since Joe Biden was forced out of the first debate in July is the enduring power of televised encounters to shape the campaign. Then, Trump was as mendacious, evasive and factually unmoored as ever, but his brutal reckoning with a confused Biden proved a knock-out punch.

Harris was the beneficiary, catapulted from the doldrums of Veep-dom to the nomination when Biden finally........

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