Republican campaign consultants say President Donald Trump’s plan to skip a virtual debate could hurt his chances at reelection, NBC News reports.
The second presidential debate was originally scheduled to take place next week in Miami. Amid the president's positive coronavirus diagnosis, the non-partisan Commission on Presidential Debates announced Thursday it would hold the town hall-style debate virtually to "protect the health and safety of all involved.”
Trump responded saying he wouldn’t participate during an interview with Fox Business.
"I'm not going to waste my time on a virtual debate,” Trump said Thursday. “That is not acceptable to us. I beat him easily in the first debate...They're trying to protect Biden, everybody is."
Some of the president’s aides are urging him to reconsider his stance on the virtual debate, a White House official told NBC News.
"The president's threat to walk away from a virtual debate is a power move that seems almost certain to backfire," GOP strategist Liam Donovan told NBC News. "This debate may be the last best opportunity to score a game-changing moment or otherwise hope to impact the trajectory of this race before it's too late.”
Donovan added that Biden would possibly benefit if Trump skips the debate.
"It's also one of the few remaining speed bumps for Vice President Biden, and Trump would be doing Joe a real favor by letting him off the hook,” he said.
GOP pollster Whit Ayers told NBC News the president may change his mind after he speaks with his advisers.
"He's behind, and he needs to take every opportunity to try to close the gap," Ayers said. "The only upside to him skipping this is if his performance is going to be comparable to the one we saw last (at the first debate). And that would be difficult to pull off, virtually."
Alex Conant, who has worked on several Republican presidential campaigns, told NBC News that Trump needs another debate after his performance during the first one.
"Trump badly needs another debate. In reality, he needs 10 more debates. And needs it as soon as possible," Conant said. "So why he would create the potential for the debate to be canceled is just not obvious."
Both campaigns are looking to push the second debate back to Oct. 22 so it can be held in person. Biden wants it to be the last debate, while Trump’s campaign is pushing for a third debate to take place on Oct. 29.
Biden's campaign announced he will take questions directly from voters on Oct. 15, which is when the debate was supposed to take place.
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