(CNN)Kamala Harris and Mike Pence will be the two candidates on the debate stage in Utah on Wednesday night, but the California senator's goal is to make the contest all about the man who isn't there: President Donald Trump.

Harris, according to multiple Democrats familiar with her debate strategy, is preparing for the highest profile moment in her political career by studying both Trump and Pence's past positions, speaking with people who either know Pence well or have debated him in the past and preparing for a vice president who, unlike his boss, doesn't show much emotion on the debate stage.

But the goal, the sources said, is to make the debate about more than Pence and focus the conversation on Trump's mishandling of the coronavirus, much like Biden tried to do a week earlier.