Most U.S. adults plan to watch or listen to some segment of Thursday’s presidential debate as they consider it an essential element of both combatants 2024 race for the White House, polling shows.
According to the Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research polling some six in 10 U.S. adults say they are “extremely” or “very” likely to watch the debate live or in clips, or read about or listen to commentary about the performance of the combatants in the news or social media.
The numbers suggest tens of millions of Americans are likely to be engaged in at least part of the debate despite its unusually early scheduling in the campaign season.
Supporters of both President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump view the CNN-hosted clash as a major test for their candidate — or just the best free show in town and not to be missed.
In total about half, 47 percent, of Americans say the debate is “extremely” or “very” important for the success of Biden’s campaign and about four in 10 say it’s highly important for Trump’s campaign. About three in 10 Americans say it is at least “very” important for both campaigns.
Most Democrats, 55 percent, think the upcoming debate is extremely or very important for the success of the Biden campaign. About half of Republicans, 51 percent, say the same thing about the significance of the debate for the Trump campaign.
Only about one-third of independents say the debate is highly important for either campaign.
The debate will be hosted by CNN in Atlanta and moderated by the network’s Dana Bash and Jake Tapper.
It will start at 9 p.m. and will be 90 minutes long. There will be no live audience present for the duration.
The poll of 1,088 adults was conducted June 20-24, 2024, using a sample drawn from NORC’s probability-based AmeriSpeak Panel, which is designed to be representative of the U.S. population. The margin of sampling error for all respondents is plus or minus 4.0 percentage points.