The plexiglass dividers that may separate Vice President Mike Pence and Senator Kamala Harris after they face off at their debate tonight in Salt L
The plexiglass dividers that may separate Vice President Mike Pence and Senator Kamala Harris after they face off at their debate tonight in Salt Lake Metropolis will function highly effective reminders of how the coronavirus has upended the presidential marketing campaign and life in America.
A pandemic that has killed greater than 210,000 folks within the U.S. and price thousands and thousands of jobs was at all times going to be entrance and middle within the marketing campaign, however the bodily dividers — the topic of a mini-debate concerning the debate when aides to Mr. Pence briefly objected to them — underscore the extent to which the outbreak has unfold in current days by means of the highest ranges of presidency, infecting President Trump, navy leaders and several other members of the Senate.
The outbreak served as a grim reminder of the primary function of a vice chairman: to have the ability to step in and lead ought to the president grow to be incapacitated or die.
Ms. Harris, nonetheless a relative newcomer to nationwide politics who arrived in Washington as a senator in 2017, should make the case that she is able to be a heartbeat away from the presidency. And Mr. Pence, the top of the White Home coronavirus job drive, will probably must defend the federal government’s response to the virus — an effort that lagged behind different developed international locations in Europe and Asia.
Each candidates have been making ready rigorously. Mr. Pence went to Salt Lake Metropolis with two core gamers in his debate prep: Marc Brief, his chief of workers, and the previous Wisconsin governor Scott Walker, who performed Ms. Harris in a number of formal 90-minute debate prep classes that had been held with the solutions timed. (Aides stated that Mr. Pence likes to arrange with folks he feels comfy with, and they also selected Mr. Walker — who had helped him put together for his debate 4 years in the past — somewhat than somebody who was attempting to look or sound like his opponent.)
At Ms. Harris’s mock debate classes, Mr. Pence was performed by Pete Buttigieg, the previous mayor of South Bend, Ind., who ran within the Democratic presidential main. Mr. Buttigieg was chosen, aides stated, for his debating expertise and likewise due to his information of Mr. Pence’s file as governor of their shared residence state, Indiana.