With the margin of error eight weeks before Election Day and early voting beginning this month in some crucial swing states, it’s hard not to underscore the importance of Tuesday’s debate between Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump.

“It will shape the campaign in people’s minds and have a decisive influence,” Matt Brooks, veteran GOP strategist and CEO of the Republican Jewish Coalition, told Fox News Digital.

Republican consultant and Fox News contributor Ari Fleischer stressed that “there is a lot at stake in this debate.”

While Trump is well known to American voters, they are much less familiar with Harris.

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“For the first time, people will really see what she is doing and whether she can stand on her own two feet,” argued Fleischer, White House press secretary under then-President George W. Bush.

Harris and Trump will share the same stage at the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia for an ABC News debate. It will be their first and perhaps only face-to-face meeting before the presidential election.

Harris has enjoyed a resurgence in both the polls and fundraising since she replaced President Biden at the top of the 2024 Democratic ticket in July, but Republicans argue that Americans’ honeymoon with the vice president is wearing off.

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Fleischer’s advice to Trump is: “Beat her on policy. Just like you did with Biden in the first debate. That was a disciplined, tough, policy-oriented Donald Trump. I would like to see the same Donald Trump against Kamala Harris.”

Brooks stressed that “the differences in policy are clear and obvious. If we stick to our policies, it will be beneficial to the American people. That is what they are looking for and what they want to hear.”

Democratic presidential candidate Vice President Kamala Harris speaks at a campaign rally at the Enmarket Arena in Savannah, Georgia, August 29, 2024. (Win McNamee/Getty Images)

Senator Tim Scott of South Carolina, who has been seriously considered as Trump’s 2024 vice presidential candidate, told Fox News that the former president “doesn’t need my advice. He just needs to be himself.”

Scott said: “I think the American people have largely made up their minds. This debate of these independents, these undecided voters, will show why Donald Trump is the only choice in 2024.”

Senator Tom Cotton of Arkansas, another Trump ally and surrogate, stressed: “The American people know where President Trump stands. They know what they got when President Trump was president.”

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Referring to the Vice President, Cotton accused Kamala Harris of “trying to run as a blank slate.”

When asked what advice he would give the former president, Cotton Scott agreed: “I don’t think President Trump needs my advice.”

“At his last debate, he ended a presidential campaign. I look forward to him doing the same thing … by exposing Kamala Harris’ radical past,” Cotton said.

MSNBC host and former White House press secretary Jen Psaki expressed concern about President Biden (right) during his infamous debate with former President Donald Trump. (Getty Images)

Biden’s disastrous performance in the debate against Trump in late June immediately fueled doubts about his physical and mental ability to serve another four years in the White House – and sparked growing calls within his own party for the 81-year-old president to end his second-term bid. Facing mounting pressure from his Democrats, Biden ended his re-election campaign and endorsed his vice president in a forceful announcement on July 21.

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Harris and Trump are taking very different approaches to preparing for Tuesday’s confrontation.

Harris spent most of the last four days in a downtown Pittsburgh hotel, participating in an intensive “debate camp” that included numerous simulated debate sessions.

Trump spent much of last weekend at his golf club in Bedminster, New Jersey, attending less formal “political meetings” with staff and allies. But Trump also traveled to the swing state of Wisconsin on Saturday to headline a campaign rally.

Republican presidential candidate and former President Donald Trump leaves a campaign rally at Central Wisconsin Airport in Mosinee, Wisconsin on September 7, 2024. (Scott Olson/Getty Images)

“It’s really important that Donald Trump knows the script,” Fleischer stressed. “He needs to know Kamala Harris’ positions that she took in 2019 and 2020 on confiscating guns, equating the Border Patrol with the Ku Klux Klan, ending fracking and ending offshore oil drilling. He needs to know her positions, and that requires prior study.”

When asked about the former president’s preparations, Trump campaign national press secretary Karoline Leavitt said in an interview with Fox News: “Let me tell you, President Trump is ready.”

Biden’s halting speech and inconsistent answers in the first debate allowed Trump to make his arguments almost unhindered.

But Trump, 78, is unlikely to give such free rein to Harris, 59, a veteran prosecutor who served as San Francisco district attorney and California attorney general before being elected to the Senate in 2016.

A big question ahead of Tuesday’s debate will be how Trump will react if Harris gets under the former president’s skin by going on the offensive and calling him out on his likely insults and false statements.

“With President Trump, you never know what you’re going to get. There’s always an element of surprise that makes him so authentic and real. But that can be risky,” Fleischer noted. “I hope that with this disciplined debate, he will be the same person he was against Joe Biden. He’s already knocked out a Democrat – Joe Biden. Maybe he can do it twice.”

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