It’s the moment Thomas Suozzi has been craving for months: the chance to stand on the same stage as Eliot Spitzer and force the attorney general to acknowledge the Nassau County executive’s existence.

The two gubernatorial candidates are set to face off tomorrow night at Pace University for what is to be the first (and likely last) Democratic debate in the race prior to the primary election in September. Another is planned for late August with Republican candidate John Faso, with the three candidates participating in remote locations using satellite feed.

Tomorrow’s encounter is akin to a last-place baseball team taking on the best club in the game with the playoffs fast approaching. For the Suozzi campaign, which is trailing Mr. Spitzer in the latest opinion poll by 65 percentage points, the debate is an opportunity to attract positive headlines, put Mr. Spitzer on the defensive, and find a spark of life.

The county executive has spent months whipping up press conferences attacking Mr.Spitzer in an effort to convince voters that the attorney general’s squeaky-clean, reformist image is a mirage. While few if any of his attacks have stuck, the Suozzi campaign is hoping the candidate’s message will carry more weight when it’s delivered directly to the attorney general.

For Mr. Spitzer, the bar is set much lower. His objective, political consultants say, is to avoid making a serious gaffe that could potentially drag him down. “The best advice for him is to follow the Hippocratic Oath: Do no harm,” a lobbyist and Democratic political consultant in Manhattan, Evan Stavisky, said. “The stars are perfectly aligned for him, so the overriding strategic imperative is don’t mess it up.”

Suozzi aides say they hope to take advantage of the low expectations set by the Spitzer campaign. “If Eliot Spitzer just does no harm, he’s going to lose this debate,” a senior adviser to the campaign, Daniel Gerstein, said. “Their strategy should be to try to knock Tom out.”

Political consultants say they expect Mr. Spitzer to avoid the mudslinging that marked his 1998 attorney general debates. Down in the polls, Mr. Spitzer tore into the Republican incumbent, Dennis Vacco, in the general election debates that year, accusing Mr. Vacco at one point of contributing to the murder of an obstetrician by not taking the danger of anti-abortion protesters more seriously.

The Suozzi camp has been preparing for the debate with an intensity befitting a presidential campaign. Mr. Suozzi has been busy participating in mock debate sessions with his campaign aides, who have taken turns playing Mr. Spitzer. The Suozzi camp also has watched archival videos of Mr. Spitzer’s past debates, probing for weaknesses. “Eliot has a tendency to speak in very lawyerly-like language,” Mr. Gerstein said.

The path to Pace University has been a long one for the Suozzi campaign, which has been in high dudgeon over Mr. Spitzer’s reluctance to engage him. The campaign at times has resorted to unusual campaign tactics to get Mr. Spitzer’s attention. In May, Mr. Suozzi traveled to Ticonderoga to attend a debate in which he was the sole participant. Last month, when Mr. Spitzer came to Mineola for a campaign stop, Mr. Suozzi confronted him at the train station and peppered him with questions about his tax plan.

Mr. Spitzer, an experienced courtroom prosecutor, has not staged mock debates but has had informal question-and-answer sessions with staff, a campaign aide said. “You’re going to see in this debate from Eliot what you’ve seen throughout this campaign, which is a thoughtful, knowledgeable, issue-focused campaign,” a Spitzer spokeswoman, Christine Anderson, said.

Mr. Spitzer, according to a new biography, “Spoiling for a Fight,” honed his debating skills at the family dinner table while growing up. He would peruse issues of Foreign Affairs in preparation for the nightly family gatherings, according to the book.