Vice president debate:
Pence and Harris set out to convince US they are fit to take the presidency
US vice-president Mike Pence and Democratic rival Kamala Harris were preparing to face off last night in their only debate as President Donald Trump’s coronavirus diagnosis and the pandemic continue to disrupt the presidential contest.
The televised encounter in Salt Lake City, Utah, comes after the Republican president announced last Friday he had tested positive for the coronavirus amid a White House outbreak.
Former vice-president Joe Biden, the Democratic presidential nominee, is leading Mr Trump in national polls, including an advantage of 12 percentage points in the latest Reuters/Ipsos survey of likely voters, with less than four weeks until the November 3 election.
Polls show the race to be closer in some of the election battleground states expected to determine the winner.
The two campaigns squabbled over installing barriers on stage between Mr Pence and Ms Harris to guard against infection.
Television images of the debate stage showed two plexiglass barriers, one adjoining each lectern.
Ms Harris had requested plexiglass shielding. Mr Pence spokeswoman Katie Miller mocked Ms Harris, saying she “wants to use a fortress around herself ”.
Both Mr Pence and Ms Harris, a senator from California, tested negative for the coronavirus on Tuesday. Government guidelines call for anyone exposed to a person with Covid-19 to quarantine for 14 days regardless of test results.
In a statement, Ms Harris spokeswoman Sabrina Singh said: “If the Trump administration’s war on masks has now become a war on safety shields, that tells you everything you need to know about why their Covid response is a failure.”
With two septuagenarians squaring off for the presidency – Mr Trump and Mr Biden are 74 and 77 respectively – the debate could take on greater importance. Mr Pence (61) and Harris (55) will seek to demonstrate they could step into the Oval Office if necessary to lead the US. Mr Pence has been an ardent defender of Mr Trump during his tumultuous presidency.
It is unclear when the president will again be able to campaign.
On Tuesday he said he was looking forward to the October 15 presidential debate, the second of three scheduled encounters with Mr Biden.
The pandemic was expected to dominate the Pence-Harris debate. Both have made Mr Trump’s handling of the public health crisis a central theme of their campaign, with Ms Harris blaming Mr Trump for downplaying the health risks and failing to endorse mask-wearing to combat the spread of the disease.
Barrier
Mr Pence, who has led the administration’s coronavirus task force, can be expected to defend Mr Trump’s response to the pandemic, which has killed more than 210,000 Americans and battered the economy even as other wealthy nations have managed to get it under better control.
Viewers will have a constant reminder of the pandemic’s effect on daily life. Mr Pence and Ms Harris were to be placed more than 3.6m apart on stage at the University of
Utah, in addition to the plexiglass barrier.
In preparation for the debate, Ms Harris received help from former Democratic presidential primary rival Pete Buttigieg, a former mayor of South Bend, Indiana, who is familiar with Mr Pence’s past record when he was governor of the Midwestern state.
The debate is unlikely to match the chaos of the first presidential debate last week in which Mr Trump repeatedly interrupted Mr Biden and the two traded insults.
Mr Pence, who once hosted a radio show, and Ms Harris, a former prosecutor known for sharp questioning during Senate hearings, are seen as polished communicators.
A Biden campaign official said Ms Harris had prepared for Mr Pence to attack her as too liberal, which would echo the president’s assertion that the moderate Mr Biden would advance a “radical left-wing” agenda if elected president.