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https://www.publico.pt/2020/09/18/ciencia/noticia/so-esforco-gigantesco-acabar-plastico-deriva-1932075
The two main candidates for the US vice presidency will have, the next morning, their only face to face in the entire electoral campaign. During 90 minutes without advertising interruptions, Republican Mike Pence and Democrat Kamala Harris will analyze, above all, the consequences of the covid-19 pandemic in the country, and the debate is expected to be more informative than the first between Donald Trump. and Joe Biden, last week.
The confrontation will take place at the University of Utah, in Salt Lake City, and the start is scheduled for 7 p.m. local time (9 p.m. in Washington DC and 2 a. Thursday morning in mainland Portugal). The moderator is Susan Page, the newspaper’s head of delegation. USA Today in the capital of the United States.
Debates between US vice presidential candidates have traditionally been used to attack and defend presidential candidates. But this year, Trump and Biden’s old age brings Pence and Harris closer to the Oval Office.
Both Mike Pence and Kamala Harris have already indicated that they intend to run for president in 2024, whatever the outcome of the next election.
In the case of the Democratic Party, Joe Biden (77 years old) came out as a transitional candidate, which opens the door for Kamala Harris (55 years old) to consolidate the favorite image of her party in 2024. On the other hand, in the Republican Party, There have never been signs that Donald Trump is interested in preparing for his succession, but if he is reelected this year, Trump will not be able to run again in 2024, and Mike Pence (61) has an open path towards appearing well positioned as the main face of your group.
In addition to the peculiarity that both vice presidential candidates have strong aspirations and the possibility of reaching the presidency in the near future, the debate between Pence and Harris also takes place in a political environment very different from the one that existed until then. Last March.
In 2019, the Republican Party had the trump card of economic recovery to convince the undecided to vote for Donald Trump. And the US president could have even strengthened his position at the polls with his acquittal at the the impeachment process, between December 2019 and January 2020.
But the COVID-19 pandemic has changed that dynamic, and the White House’s response has been widely criticized by the majority of the electorate. In the debate between Pence and Harris, the Democratic candidate is likely to try to force her opponent, the head of the anti-pandemic team in the White House, to say if he agrees with the comparison that Donald Trump has made between the covid. -19 and the common flu, and it is also considered that the use of the mask should be optional even in closed spaces.
The debate is not expected to be marked by the constant interruptions and offenses that made the first debate between Trump and Biden last week the worst on record in terms of public clarification. But it will be interesting to observe the dynamics of the discussions between Kamala Harris, a former California prosecutor known for his tough questionnaires in the Senate Justice Committee, and Mike Pence, a former senator who rarely raises his voice and projects a style that is opposite to President Trump.
The debate was called into question because Mike Pence resisted Kamala Harris’s demand that the two candidates appear protected by acrylic dividers, but the Republican candidate eventually relented. In the last hours, one of the main advisers to the White House, Stephen Miller, was diagnosed with covid-19. And Stephen Miller’s wife, Katie Miller, is Mike Pence’s press officer.
