After their debate, Harris and Trump comb the states at the heart of their duel

Can the debate between Donald Trump and Kamala Harris swing voters into the grip ;e of states likely to decide the winner of the presidential election? The two candidates The White House will return on Thursday to the conquest of these precious voices.

After a short-lived truce to honor the memory of the victims of the September 11 attacks, the former Republican president will hold a campaign rally in Arizona early this afternoon.

Donald Trump, in Arizona, August 23, 2024 © AFP – Olivier TOURON

This state in the American West was one of the most contested in the 2020 presidential election — Joe Biden won it by 10,000 votes against Donald Trump — and promises an equally tight.

The Republican candidate is due to deliver a speech focusing on the economy from Tucson, a university town about a hundred kilometres from the border with Mexico.

– 60 years of debates –

His Democratic rival will be on the other side of the country at the same time, in North Carolina. The vice-president is counting on the votes of African-Americans and young people, re-motivated by her candidacy, to win against the Republican billionaire in this state bordering the Atlantic.

As in the two previous presidential elections, the 2024 election could be decided by a few thousand votes in certain strategic counties in six or seven pivotal states, due to the voting method, the election being played by indirect universal suffrage.

It is therefore towards these states, spread across the country and including Arizona and North Carolina, that Donald Trump and Kamala Harris will concentrate their campaign efforts and invest the bulk of their war chest.

Kamala Harris, in North Carolina, on August 16, 2024 © AFP – Allison Joyce

The fifty-year-old is particularly keen to capitalise on her debate on Tuesday against Donald Trump, whom she dominated according to most commentators.

But can this confrontation, watched by more than 67 million viewers, really make a difference??

While these televised meetings have been highlights of the election campaign for more than 60 years, their impact on the vote often remains limited.

With one notable exception: the debate in June between Joe Biden and Donald Trump, which greatly precipitated the Democratic president's withdrawal from the race – one of the greatest political upheavals in modern history.

– “Short Memory” –

“Voters' memories are short,” Kyle Kondik, a political scientist at the University of Virginia, said in a note. The analyst assures that there is enough time left before the November 5 election “for the impact of the debate – if there is one – to fade.”

Donald Trump and Kamala Harris during a debate in Philadelphia, September 10, 2024 © AFP – SAUL LOEB

And according to the polls, a vast majority of voters have already chosen their camp for the election. They are leaning equally towards the Democrat and the Republican, if we are to believe these opinion polls.

A new televised confrontation between the two presidential candidates is not to be ruled out, however: the Democratic candidate has challenged her Republican rival to debate a second time.

The tempestuous septuagenarian has not formally accepted this proposition, initially assuring that he did not want to “replay the match”. Before suggesting that he might change his mind if this new duel were organized by Fox News, the favorite channel of the American right.

A discussion between their running mates is planned for October 1, in New York.

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