“Simply put, the commission’s current approach is an outdated dinosaur and not reflective of voting realities in 2020,” Mr. Giuliani wrote. “For a nation already deprived of a traditional campaign schedule because of the Covid-19 global pandemic, it makes no sense to also deprive so many Americans of the opportunity to see and hear the two competing visions for our country’s future before millions of votes have been cast.”
On Thursday, the Biden campaign spokesman TJ Ducklo released a statement. “As we have said for months, the commission will determine the dates and times of the debates, and Joe Biden will be there,” Mr. Ducklo said. “Now that Donald Trump’s transparent attempt to distract from his disastrous response to the virus is over, maybe now he can focus on saving American lives and getting our economy back on track.”
Michael P. McDonald, a political science professor at the University of Florida who studies American elections, said he has discussed the timing of the debates and early voting with the commission. He said Mr. Giuliani was correct in asserting that millions of Americans will have received their ballots and have had the opportunity to vote by mail by Sept. 29.
But he said that based on his estimates from the previous presidential election, far fewer people will have actually voted by that time. And those who have voted, he added, would not likely be swayed by a television debate.
“These are people who are hard partisans,” Mr. McDonald said of those who cast early ballots. “They’ve made up their mind a long time ago, as to who they’re going to vote for,” adding that “no debate is really going to sway them one way or another.”
Mr. McDonald said that although his data was incomplete, his best estimates suggested that only about 10,000 people had actually voted by late September during the 2016 election. Many signs point to increased turnout this fall, meaning that tens of thousands more voters could potentially vote very early, he said. But in all likelihood, he added, “it’s not going to be millions.”