November 21, 2023
COURTESY/LAFAYETTE COLLEGE
Lafayette College in Easton, Pennsylvania, has been chosen as the site of the 2024 U.S. vice presidential debate taking place Sept. 25, 2024.
Lafayette College, a private liberal arts college in Easton, Northampton County, will host the one and only vice presidential debate leading up to the 2024 election.
The televised U.S. vice presidential debate will take place on the campus of the Lehigh Valley college on Sept. 25, the U.S. Commission on Presidential Debates announced on Monday.
The nonpartisan commission, which is responsible for planning and conducting debates between major party presidential candidates, released the full list of dates and places for next year's debates.
The first of three presidential debates ahead of the 2024 election will take place during the week prior to the Lafayette event, on Sept. 16 at Texas State University in San Marcos, Texas. After the vice presidential debate, the presidential candidates square off two more times — at Virginia State University in Petersburg Virginia on Oct. 1 and at the University of Utah in Salt Lake City on Oct. 9.
Presumably, current U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris will be on stage at Lafayette College along with the running mate of the Republican Party's presidential nominee. While presidential hopefuls have been campaigning for months now, the 2024 election cycle officially kicks off Jan. 15 with the Iowa caucuses.
The debate at Lafayette will be held at the school's Kirby Sports Center, the college announced. The format of the event and the moderators will be revealed closer to the event.
Lafayette has never hosted a presidential or vice presidential debate before, but several leaders have been to the campus during its nearly 200-year history. Among them, President Rutherford B. Hayes attended the rededication of a campus building in 1880; Richard Nixon delivered the 1956 commencement speech while he was vice president to Dwight Eisenhower; former President George H.W. Bush addressed new graduates in 1998; in 2012, then-Vice President Joe Biden delivered a lecture on campus; and in 2013, former President Jimmy Carter gave a lecture on international affairs.
