Late-campaign general election debates are often more curiosity than determinative in influencing all but the most undecided of voters. Most face-to-face candidate clashes consist of a rehash of platform pledges, past achievements, and well-worn attacks on opponents, while hoping to induce or avoid a blatant blunder or loss of composure in the last laps before Election Day.
A 2019 Harvard Business School study of 62 elections in nine countries that included 56 televised debates found the vast majority of voters who change their minds about who they are going to vote for during the course of a campaign do so long before the final weeks, and are rarely dissuaded by what they see or hear during a debate in the final weeks before casting ballots.
But that may not be so tonight when Democrat John Fetterman and Republican Mehmet Oz, take the stage at 8 p.m. EST for their first and only debate in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania.
The Pennsylvania Senate race to succeed retiring Sen. Pat Toomey (R-Pa.) is rated as one of a handful of competitive elections that could determine which party controls the chamber in 2023.
According to an Oct. 21-24 CBS News/YouGov Battleground Tracker survey of 1,084 registered Pennsylvania voters released Oct. 25—which gives Fetterman a 2-percentage point lead in the race—respondents identified the economy, gas prices, crime, and abortion as among the top issues they want to hear about in the debate.
