US presidential debate expected to be rare draw in polarised age

New York

The uniquely uncivil presidential campaign is about to produce one of the biggest civic gatherings in decades: for 90 minutes on Monday night, a polarised nation will pause to watch the first head-to-head encounter between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump.

The total audience, network executives and political strategists say, could be as high as 100 million viewers - Super Bowl territory. That would surpass the 80 million who watched Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan in 1980, the record for a presidential debate, and rank among television benchmarks like the finales of M.A.S.H. and Cheers. Not all viewers will watch from their living rooms. At the Dreamland Theater in tiny Nantucket, Massachusetts, so many are expected for a debate-watching party that the town assigned a police officer to stand watch in case of rowdiness.