The Donald and Kamala brace for first U.S. presidential debate amid tight race

U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump are gearing up for a faceoff in their first presidential debate in Philadelphia on Tuesday night. 

Harris, a former prosecutor, will go head to head with Trump in a showdown that observers say matters because the stakes are much bigger than usual and that mistakes will be consequential.

According to the latest New York Times/Siena College poll, the 78-year-old Republican candidate is leading Harris nationally by 48 to 47 percent, well within the margin of error.

The poll found Kamala Harris, a Democrat, narrowly ahead in Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania and tied in four other swing states -- Nevada, Georgia, North Carolina and Arizona.

A former Republican communications director on Capitol Hill said: “It’s the first time Donald Trump is going to be cross-examined in front of the American people.”  “Kamala Harris’s career and experience as a prosecutor, attorney general and a senator is something that Trump should not underestimate in this debate,” said Tara Setmayer.

It will also be the first time in U.S presidential history that a former courtroom prosecutor, Harris, will take the debate stage alongside a convicted criminal.

Trump was found guilty in May of falsifying business records 34 separate times and became the first former US president to be convicted of felony crimes.

The U.S. presidential contest changed after President Joe Biden dropped out of the race in July following a dire debate performance against Trump.