BU Today: So, was that first debate the most consequential presidential debate ever?

Mattioli: I stand by what I said before. Joe Biden had to show that he was young enough to be president, and he didn’t. Those were the stakes, and I think they were widely agreed upon, and he didn’t deliver. I said most people who watch debates—the base—have already made up their minds about who they’re going to vote for, and it would take a really unusual debate performance to change anything. And that’s exactly what happened. Biden stepping down, and Kamala taking his place, is very much the work of the true believers, the decided voters and the democratic elite, who I described as like the cheerleaders who watch the debates normally. I don’t think it changed anybody’s policy views, but it changed their views of the candidate, it changed their level of support for him so dramatically.

I hope he doesn’t torture himself with watching that [debate] back. But I’m sure he’ll think about that as one of those moments in his career that was decisive.

David: It is hard to think of a more consequential debate. That one really mattered.

I had said part of what [Biden] was trying to do was to look engaged and to look kind of peppy, to look like he was in control. I mean, he wasn’t even reaching that level. That’s the thing that was shocking. He was stumbling through. There was substance there, but it was not great, to say the least. If Biden had put in a stronger performance, there would have been more analysis of what Trump didn’t do well, but as it was, he didn’t have to do that much.

BU Today: What does the change of Democratic candidate mean for tonight’s debate?

Mattioli: I think it changes a couple of things. First is just going to be the visual contrast between two old white men standing next to each other on stage, versus now a white man and a Black and Asian woman. To women, to people of color, that’s huge. This is a historic moment in terms of a woman of color debating for the presidency. It also introduces a number of dynamics in the debate that didn’t exist before. Kamala speaks differently than Joe Biden does. She doesn’t sound exactly like every other presidential candidate we’ve ever had; she communicates differently from a white male candidate, so that’s going to be really different.

The political position going into the debate is also very different. Before, Trump thought he was in a really good position, a really good spot to win in November. And now there’s good evidence that they’re within range of a statistical tie, and that maybe Harris is pulling ahead, depending on which polls you read. Trump is not as comfortable as he was.

It feels like a year ago, but it was what, two months ago? May we live in boring times again.

David: I would say, for the Harris campaign, in one way the bar is extraordinarily low. She has to go in there and put sentences together and just prove that she’s better than Biden. And at the same time the bar is also high, because, of course, the country and the Democratic party have been primed for the fact that she can walk into this room and put on a performance that is going to demonstrate the difference between the Democrats and Republicans and show that the Democratic party is resurgent. So there is a challenge here that she has to grapple with, and I think she really does have to put in a strong performance. Everyone’s expecting this sea change, and if she can’t deliver in the way that people are expecting, that’s going to be seen as a disappointment.

BU Today: The stakes are high.

Mattioli: The event itself is going to be sort of like the Olympic finals for political rhetoric. Visually and message-wise, I don’t know how you can find a sharper contrast in the elite levels of American politics than Kamala Harris debating Donald Trump in a presidential debate this close to the election, and after this major political upheaval.

David: If Trump can sort of stay focused, and somewhat do what he did in debate number one, he might actually [do well]. However, it does seem like Harris might have gotten under his skin to a certain extent. Especially because the playbook has gone out the window.

The comments about gender that almost went unnoticed during the 2016 campaign, those are getting called out now. And so the idea that he could kind of do that in the debate, and not have that come back on him, seems unlikely in 2024.

BU Today: Is there also a double standard for women candidates?

Mattioli: I firmly believe there is no way for a woman to do political debates and not be accused of violating a gender norm simply by existing in the public sphere and telling somebody something they don’t want to hear. And in a very gendered, sexist way, that immediately goes to them as people rather than them as politicians. So people viewing the debate should be thinking about that, and even checking themselves, like, ‘Am I having this reaction to Harris? How am I perceiving it?’ I remember [in 2016] hearing people say, ‘Oh, yeah, I agree with a lot of what Clinton says. There’s just something about her.’ And I’m like, I bet I know what it is. I bet it’s the second X chromosome.