People who were on summer vacation the day of the last presidential debate may not believe their eyes when they see the next one.

Tuesday’s debate between Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump is the culmination of 75 days of utter and unprecedented campaign chaos – and the beginning of a 55-day race through equally uncharted waters to Election Day.

“It’s like running a 5K after a Tilt-A-Whirl ride: The world is spinning and you have to quickly figure out which way is up,” said Democratic strategist Jared Leopold.

In the two and a half months since Trump and President Joe Biden squared off in late June, some fundamental aspects of the race have been turned on their head: One of the candidates was replaced, while the other was nearly assassinated.

The parties have made two vice presidential candidates into new national figures: Senator JD Vance (Republican of Ohio) and Governor Tim Walz (Governor of Minnesota). Trump’s criminal trials, which were set to dominate the home stretch of the campaign, are off the table due to a Supreme Court ruling the week of July 4.

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The best survey results The third strongest candidate in a generation, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., suffered a massive drop in votes, dropped out of the race and is now supporting Trump.

The parties have even swapped the rules for the debate. Harris’ campaign team pushed (unsuccessfully) for open microphones throughout the debate after Biden’s team preferred to turn off the candidates’ microphones when it was not their turn.

Craig Snyder, a Philadelphia-based political activist and author of a new presidential campaign novel called “Guile,” said novelists can’t get away with anything as unexpected as the reality of this year’s election.

“The facts of the 2024 campaign so far would probably not get a green light as fiction. It just doesn’t seem credible that so many unprecedented events could happen one after the other,” said Snyder, a Republican who leads Haley Voters for Harris, a group of Nikki Haley supporters supporting Harris. “But despite all the improbable twists and turns, here we stand on the day of what could be one of the most significant political debates in American history — perhaps surpassed only by the last one — and yet it’s a race that’s back where it started over a year ago — tied!”

And now, in the home stretch of the campaign, with the party conventions over and early voting beginning in some states, the real campaigning between the two candidates who will actually face each other in the general election is finally beginning in earnest, raising the stakes on Tuesday for the first and possibly only debate between two people who have never met in person.

“What happens on those nights is permanent. Just ask Joe Biden,” said Republican strategist Matt Gorman. “Kamala wants to come out of here with a rallying cry. Expect the Harris campaign to bring something to the campaign trail or start a narrative that they want to carry for weeks.”

Now Democrats have the younger candidate with the advantage in fundraising and big crowds – a complete reversal from a few months ago – while Trump has remained Trump, despite some allies insisting he was a different person in the days immediately following the assassination attempt on him in mid-July. Rally in Pennsylvania.

“This debate is essentially a distorted mirror image of the first debate: Trump is still the same, but now that Harris is running against him, he looks significantly older, sounds more incoherent and seems dramatically more out of touch with the world,” said Caitlin Legacki, a Democratic strategist.

And, Legacki said, given Biden’s personal discomfort with abortion – the Democrats’ most important issue – Harris can now speak more effectively than Biden ever could.

The actual incumbent is no longer in office. Both the former president and the current vice president are now pseudo-incumbents, presenting themselves as agents of change while boasting about the accomplishments of their time in the White House.

This dynamic has clouded the policy agenda of both candidates, who have failed to provide specifics on key policy areas and have made contradictory or at least ambiguous statements on old positions.

At times, Trump seems reeling from his opponent’s move; after initially insisting (or hoping?) that Biden would return, he occasionally makes a Freudian slip by calling his opponent Biden.

The Democrats have now awakened from their Biden-era lethargy – but they too have had to contend with growing pains under the new leadership.

After nearly a month of sinking into despair as Biden’s poll numbers plummeted following his disastrous June 27 debate, Biden announced his resignation on social media and announced his support for Harris and the $96 million his campaign had in the bank.

The news published while Biden Was While recovering from Covid-19 at his beach house, Harris generated ecstasy and good cheer in July and August as she secured the nomination, selected Walz and mobilized the party at its national convention. But there are signs that momentum is waning ahead of the debate as she faces increasing criticism for avoiding reporters and revealing few details about her policy agenda.

Harris’ campaign team only launched a policy page on its website on Monday. And the platform her party adopted at its convention last month was written before Biden’s withdrawal and left unchanged to avoid reopening sensitive issues such as Israel’s war in Gaza.

And despite the mood and the improved numbers, Harris tells her supporters she is still an “underdog” against Trump, with polls normally Results are displayed within the margin of error and all signs point to an extremely close election.

“No matter how you look at this election, it’s neck and neck,” pollster Richard Czuba, founder of the Lansing-based Glengariff Group, said of a recent Detroit News-WDIV-TV survey of Michigan voters, echoing what virtually every other pollster has said in virtually every other poll.

Because America has survived the past 75 days of chaos, it now faces 55 days of unpredictability the likes of which are few in modern history.