It’s on: the televised debate between Donald Trump and Kamala Harris on the ABC network a month from now, location and format TBD, fireworks and fury on both sides guaranteed.

The first contender is a felon vying to return to the White House on a tide of bullish self-belief and desire to clinch a second term. The second is a Vice-President who became the last-minute candidate after her boss’s lamentable performance in the first CNN debate, which turned the course of this election away from a brawl between two ageing men.

It is often said that debates do not much alter the course of Presidential races. That is patently not true in 2024, given that Biden’s underperformance precipitated his departure from the contest and propelled Harris from the doldrums of Veep-dom to the frontline of the Democratic fight for power. That momentum changes a lot about what happens next. It also means that Harris, who has far less experience in the bear pit of TV debate, needs to pick a style to fit her strengths, against an unscrupulous opponent who goes unchallenged by moderators and is not fact-checked in real time.

Jim Messina, the strategy guru who advised the ultimately successful Barack Obama in 2012 on his showdown tactics, told me that the surest way to lose is for debaters to end up, as Obama did in a markedly poor performance........

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