Presidential Election Debates: The First 2020 Debate (Trump vs. Biden)
On October 11, 2019, the Commission on Presidential Debates announced that it planned to host four debates during the 2020 presidential election campaign. Three of the four presidential debates were to be between incumbent president Donald Trump, Democratic nominee and former Vice President Joe Biden, and any other participants that qualify. The other debate was a vice presidential debate between incumbent vice president Mike Pence, Democratic vice presidential nominee Kamala Harris, and any third party candidates that meet the criteria. Later in that year, President Trump complained that the 2016 debates had been "biased." A meeting was held between Frank J. Fahrenkopf Jr., a Republican and co-chairman of the commission, and Brad Parscale, President Trump's campaign manager. Farhrenkopf told the New York Times that "the president wanted to debate, but they had concerns about whether or not to do it with the commission." President Trump also requested additional debates to the traditional three, but the Biden campaign declined the request.
At the end of June of 2020, representatives of the Biden campaign confirmed that they had agreed to the original schedule proposed by the CPD. In August, the CPD rejected a request by the Trump campaign to shift the debates to an earlier date, or to add a fourth debate in relation to mail-in voting. Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi suggested that Biden should skip the debates. She advised Biden to do so because, in her words, the President would "probably act in a way that is beneath the dignity of the presidency". Biden responded by saying that he wants to go ahead and participate.
The CPD set the following qualifications for participation in the debates:
1.The participant must be constitutionally eligible to hold the presidency.
2. He or she must appear on a sufficient number of ballots to have a mathematical possibility of winning a majority vote in the Electoral College.
3. The participant must be on a ticket that has a level of support of at least 15% of the national electorate as determined by five national public opinion polling organizations selected by the commission, using the average of those organizations' most recently reported results at the time of determination.
The five polls were chosen with the advice of Frank Newport of Gallup, who would determine the five polls in their discretion, using these criteria:
1. The reliable frequency of polling and sample size used by the polling organization.
2. The soundness of the survey methodology employed by the polling organization.
3. The longevity and reputation of the polling organization.
The five polls chosen were: (1) ABC/Washington Post Poll; (2) CNN Poll; (3) Fox News Poll; (4) NBC/Wall Street Journal Poll and (5) NPR/PBS NewsHour/Marist Poll. Using those polls, only the Republican and Democratic Candidates were invited to participate in the debates. Three presidential debates and one vice presidential debate were initially scheduled. The first was held on Tuesday, September 29, 2020 at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio. The debate was moderated by Chris Wallace of Fox News. It was held at the Samson Pavilion of the Health Education Campus (HEC), which is shared by Case Western Reserve University and Cleveland Clinic in Cleveland. It was originally scheduled to take place in the Phillip J. Purcell Pavilion located within the Edmund P. Joyce Center at the University of Notre Dame in Indiana, but Notre Dame withdrew as a host site on July 27, 2020, due to concerns about the COVID-19 pandemic.
Entering into the debate, Biden enjoyed a lead in the polls of just over 6% according to RealClearPolitics (RCP) and their aggregate of poll numbers. Their numbers on the night before the debate had Biden at 49.4% and Trump at 43.3%. Biden's lead in the polls was supplemented by an uptake in campaign donations as well.
Since Biden's nomination as the Democratic Party's candidate for President, the Trump campaign had attempted to leave the impression that Biden was suffering from dementia and that he was taking performance enhancing drugs during the primaries. Trump himself had called for Biden to be drug tested before the debate. He also claimed that Biden planned to use a hidden electronic earpiece for the debate. Biden laughed off both of these accusations.
Trump also made repeated claims that the election would be rigged by means of voter fraud, especially by fraud involving the use of mail in ballots. In the weeks leading up to the debate, Trump became part of various controversies. Bob Woodward's second book on the Trump presidency, entitled Rage (reviewed here in this community) made mention of a recording made in February 2020, in which Trump indicated that he understood the severity of the COVID-19 pandemic early on. Trump defended his attempts to publicly downplay the severity of the pandemic, saying that "I don't want to create a panic."
The New York Times had also published an investigation into President Trump's federal tax returns, which found that the president had paid no tax at all in 10 out of 15 years studied, and only $750 in federal income tax for 2016 and 2017. They reported that his businesses lost money in most years, using this to challenge claims by the Trump campaign that the President was a superior businessman.
A few days before the debate, the US passed the milestone of 200,000 deaths from COVID-19, a figure which represented 20% of worldwide fatalities, despite the US having only 4% of the world's population.
Another contentious issues was the recent death of Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. Ginsburg was one part of the Supreme Court's bloc of liberal justices. The day after Ginsberg's funeral, President Trump nominated conservative Amy Coney Barrett. Senate Republican Majority Leader Mitch McConnell promised a vote on her nomination before Election Day, a controversial stance in light of Senate Republicans' refusal to consider a Supreme Court nomination by President Barack Obama in an election year.
At the debate, the plan was to divide it into six segments: (1) the candidates' records, (2) the Supreme Court, (3) the coronavirus pandemic, (4) race and violence in cities, (5) election integrity, and (6) the economy. Each segment was intended to last approximately 15 minutes. The moderator introduced each topic and gave each candidate two minutes to speak, followed by facilitated discussion between them. But the allotted time was generally not followed. President Trump repeatedly interrupted and criticized his opponent and on several occasions, Biden responded in kind to Trump, at one time calling his opponent a "clown" and another time telling him, "will you shut up man." On several occasions, an exasperated Wallace pleaded with the candidates to respect the rules of the debate.
During the debate, Trump was asked if he would condemn white supremacy groups. Trump relied "Give me a name...", Biden responded by saying "The Proud Boys". Trump then said "Proud Boys, stand back and stand by, but I'll tell you what, I'll tell you what, somebody's got to do something about Antifa and the Left, because this is not a right-wing problem, this is a left-wing problem." Biden replied that Antifa was an idea, not an organization. When asked about police reform, Biden called for an increase in police funding, adding that such funds would be used to hire psychologists or psychiatrists who would accompany police officers during 9-1-1 calls in order to defuse situations and reduce the use of force.
Biden refused to answer directly a question about whether, if elected, he intended to add additional seats to the United States Supreme Court in an effort to add additional liberal justices to the court.
When Biden referred to Trump's remarks in March 2020 about injecting disinfectant to treat the COVID-19 virus, Trump said it was made sarcastically. Biden stated that the trade deficit with China is higher and that violent crime is up, facts that have since been disputed. Trump criticized Biden's handling of the 2009 swine flu pandemic, a pandemic in which an estimated 60 million cases in the United States occurred and had an estimated death toll of about 12,000. When Biden mentioned that Trump should get "a lot smarter", Trump said, "Don't ever use the word smart with me, don't ever use that word. There's nothing smart about you, Joe." Sparks also flew when Trump attacked Biden's son Hunter, while Biden staunchly defended the life and service of his late son Beau.
A post-debate CNN poll found that 60% of debate-viewers thought that Biden had won and 28% thought Trump had. A CBS News poll taken following the debate reported that 48% of people thought Biden won, 41% of people thought Trump won, while 10% considered it a tie. The same poll saw 83% of the respondents believing that the tone of the debate was negative, while 17% believed it was positive.
Rick Santorum, a former Republican senator, later said that it was a "huge mistake" by Trump not to condemn white supremacy properly during the debate. The day after the debate, Trump said, I don't know who Proud Boys are, but whoever they are, they have to stand down." On October 1, Trump said on Sean Hannity's show: "I've said it many times, and let me be clear again: I condemn the KKK. I condemn all white supremacists. I condemn the Proud Boys. I don't know much about the Proud Boys, almost nothing. But I condemn that."
The debate had a total of at least 73.1 million viewers on television, according to Nielsen ratings. It was the third most watched debate in U.S. history, behind the first debate between Trump and Hillary Clinton in 2016 (84 million), and the only debate between Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan in 1980 (80.6 million).
A second debate was scheduled for Thursday, October 15, 2020, but was cancelled following President Trump's diagnosis of coronavirus. Instead the two candidates held competing townhall meetings. A third debate is currently scheduled for Thursday, October 22, 2020 at
Belmont University in Nashville, Tennessee.
On Wednesday, October 7, 2020, a debate between the two candidates for Vice-President (incumbent republican Mike Pence and Democratic California Senator Kamala Harris) was held at the University of Utah. It was moderated by Susan Page of USA Today. President Trump and a number of White House individuals had tested positive for COVID-19 on October 2, 2020. For the Vice-Presidential candidates' debate, it was decided that Pence and Harris would sit at least 12 feet apart. On October 5, the Commission on Presidential Debates approved the use of plexiglass, but that the candidates and moderator would each be allowed to choose whether they wanted such a barrier near their own body.
The debate was planned to be divided into nine 10-minute segments, but the moderator was only able to ask candidates about eight topics. During the debate, moderator Susan Page asked both vice presidential candidates if they had discussed with their running mates, "about safeguards or procedures when it comes to presidential disability." The issue had was prompted by the age of both presidential candidates (both are in their 70s) and Trump's hospitalization with COVID-19. Both Pence and Harris dodged the question and instead pivoted to other topics. When Harris was asked if she would support an expansion of the number of justices on the Supreme Court if the Senate confirmed Trump's nomination of Amy Coney Barrett to the Court, she did not answer the question.
Much was made in media and social media circles about a fly that landed on Pence's head during the debate. The black fly was noticeable in contrast to Pence's white hair, distracting from an answer he gave praising the efforts of police officers.
The debate had a total of 57.9 million viewers on TV and had the second-largest television audience of any U.S. vice presidential debate. It was watched by an estimated 22 million more people than the amount who watched the 2016 vice presidential debate, behind the only debate between Sarah Palin and Joe Biden in 2008.
At the end of June of 2020, representatives of the Biden campaign confirmed that they had agreed to the original schedule proposed by the CPD. In August, the CPD rejected a request by the Trump campaign to shift the debates to an earlier date, or to add a fourth debate in relation to mail-in voting. Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi suggested that Biden should skip the debates. She advised Biden to do so because, in her words, the President would "probably act in a way that is beneath the dignity of the presidency". Biden responded by saying that he wants to go ahead and participate.
The CPD set the following qualifications for participation in the debates:
1.The participant must be constitutionally eligible to hold the presidency.
2. He or she must appear on a sufficient number of ballots to have a mathematical possibility of winning a majority vote in the Electoral College.
3. The participant must be on a ticket that has a level of support of at least 15% of the national electorate as determined by five national public opinion polling organizations selected by the commission, using the average of those organizations' most recently reported results at the time of determination.
The five polls were chosen with the advice of Frank Newport of Gallup, who would determine the five polls in their discretion, using these criteria:
1. The reliable frequency of polling and sample size used by the polling organization.
2. The soundness of the survey methodology employed by the polling organization.
3. The longevity and reputation of the polling organization.
The five polls chosen were: (1) ABC/Washington Post Poll; (2) CNN Poll; (3) Fox News Poll; (4) NBC/Wall Street Journal Poll and (5) NPR/PBS NewsHour/Marist Poll. Using those polls, only the Republican and Democratic Candidates were invited to participate in the debates. Three presidential debates and one vice presidential debate were initially scheduled. The first was held on Tuesday, September 29, 2020 at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio. The debate was moderated by Chris Wallace of Fox News. It was held at the Samson Pavilion of the Health Education Campus (HEC), which is shared by Case Western Reserve University and Cleveland Clinic in Cleveland. It was originally scheduled to take place in the Phillip J. Purcell Pavilion located within the Edmund P. Joyce Center at the University of Notre Dame in Indiana, but Notre Dame withdrew as a host site on July 27, 2020, due to concerns about the COVID-19 pandemic.
Entering into the debate, Biden enjoyed a lead in the polls of just over 6% according to RealClearPolitics (RCP) and their aggregate of poll numbers. Their numbers on the night before the debate had Biden at 49.4% and Trump at 43.3%. Biden's lead in the polls was supplemented by an uptake in campaign donations as well.
Since Biden's nomination as the Democratic Party's candidate for President, the Trump campaign had attempted to leave the impression that Biden was suffering from dementia and that he was taking performance enhancing drugs during the primaries. Trump himself had called for Biden to be drug tested before the debate. He also claimed that Biden planned to use a hidden electronic earpiece for the debate. Biden laughed off both of these accusations.
Trump also made repeated claims that the election would be rigged by means of voter fraud, especially by fraud involving the use of mail in ballots. In the weeks leading up to the debate, Trump became part of various controversies. Bob Woodward's second book on the Trump presidency, entitled Rage (reviewed here in this community) made mention of a recording made in February 2020, in which Trump indicated that he understood the severity of the COVID-19 pandemic early on. Trump defended his attempts to publicly downplay the severity of the pandemic, saying that "I don't want to create a panic."
The New York Times had also published an investigation into President Trump's federal tax returns, which found that the president had paid no tax at all in 10 out of 15 years studied, and only $750 in federal income tax for 2016 and 2017. They reported that his businesses lost money in most years, using this to challenge claims by the Trump campaign that the President was a superior businessman.
A few days before the debate, the US passed the milestone of 200,000 deaths from COVID-19, a figure which represented 20% of worldwide fatalities, despite the US having only 4% of the world's population.
Another contentious issues was the recent death of Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. Ginsburg was one part of the Supreme Court's bloc of liberal justices. The day after Ginsberg's funeral, President Trump nominated conservative Amy Coney Barrett. Senate Republican Majority Leader Mitch McConnell promised a vote on her nomination before Election Day, a controversial stance in light of Senate Republicans' refusal to consider a Supreme Court nomination by President Barack Obama in an election year.
At the debate, the plan was to divide it into six segments: (1) the candidates' records, (2) the Supreme Court, (3) the coronavirus pandemic, (4) race and violence in cities, (5) election integrity, and (6) the economy. Each segment was intended to last approximately 15 minutes. The moderator introduced each topic and gave each candidate two minutes to speak, followed by facilitated discussion between them. But the allotted time was generally not followed. President Trump repeatedly interrupted and criticized his opponent and on several occasions, Biden responded in kind to Trump, at one time calling his opponent a "clown" and another time telling him, "will you shut up man." On several occasions, an exasperated Wallace pleaded with the candidates to respect the rules of the debate.
During the debate, Trump was asked if he would condemn white supremacy groups. Trump relied "Give me a name...", Biden responded by saying "The Proud Boys". Trump then said "Proud Boys, stand back and stand by, but I'll tell you what, I'll tell you what, somebody's got to do something about Antifa and the Left, because this is not a right-wing problem, this is a left-wing problem." Biden replied that Antifa was an idea, not an organization. When asked about police reform, Biden called for an increase in police funding, adding that such funds would be used to hire psychologists or psychiatrists who would accompany police officers during 9-1-1 calls in order to defuse situations and reduce the use of force.
Biden refused to answer directly a question about whether, if elected, he intended to add additional seats to the United States Supreme Court in an effort to add additional liberal justices to the court.
When Biden referred to Trump's remarks in March 2020 about injecting disinfectant to treat the COVID-19 virus, Trump said it was made sarcastically. Biden stated that the trade deficit with China is higher and that violent crime is up, facts that have since been disputed. Trump criticized Biden's handling of the 2009 swine flu pandemic, a pandemic in which an estimated 60 million cases in the United States occurred and had an estimated death toll of about 12,000. When Biden mentioned that Trump should get "a lot smarter", Trump said, "Don't ever use the word smart with me, don't ever use that word. There's nothing smart about you, Joe." Sparks also flew when Trump attacked Biden's son Hunter, while Biden staunchly defended the life and service of his late son Beau.
A post-debate CNN poll found that 60% of debate-viewers thought that Biden had won and 28% thought Trump had. A CBS News poll taken following the debate reported that 48% of people thought Biden won, 41% of people thought Trump won, while 10% considered it a tie. The same poll saw 83% of the respondents believing that the tone of the debate was negative, while 17% believed it was positive.
Rick Santorum, a former Republican senator, later said that it was a "huge mistake" by Trump not to condemn white supremacy properly during the debate. The day after the debate, Trump said, I don't know who Proud Boys are, but whoever they are, they have to stand down." On October 1, Trump said on Sean Hannity's show: "I've said it many times, and let me be clear again: I condemn the KKK. I condemn all white supremacists. I condemn the Proud Boys. I don't know much about the Proud Boys, almost nothing. But I condemn that."
The debate had a total of at least 73.1 million viewers on television, according to Nielsen ratings. It was the third most watched debate in U.S. history, behind the first debate between Trump and Hillary Clinton in 2016 (84 million), and the only debate between Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan in 1980 (80.6 million).
A second debate was scheduled for Thursday, October 15, 2020, but was cancelled following President Trump's diagnosis of coronavirus. Instead the two candidates held competing townhall meetings. A third debate is currently scheduled for Thursday, October 22, 2020 at
Belmont University in Nashville, Tennessee.
On Wednesday, October 7, 2020, a debate between the two candidates for Vice-President (incumbent republican Mike Pence and Democratic California Senator Kamala Harris) was held at the University of Utah. It was moderated by Susan Page of USA Today. President Trump and a number of White House individuals had tested positive for COVID-19 on October 2, 2020. For the Vice-Presidential candidates' debate, it was decided that Pence and Harris would sit at least 12 feet apart. On October 5, the Commission on Presidential Debates approved the use of plexiglass, but that the candidates and moderator would each be allowed to choose whether they wanted such a barrier near their own body.
The debate was planned to be divided into nine 10-minute segments, but the moderator was only able to ask candidates about eight topics. During the debate, moderator Susan Page asked both vice presidential candidates if they had discussed with their running mates, "about safeguards or procedures when it comes to presidential disability." The issue had was prompted by the age of both presidential candidates (both are in their 70s) and Trump's hospitalization with COVID-19. Both Pence and Harris dodged the question and instead pivoted to other topics. When Harris was asked if she would support an expansion of the number of justices on the Supreme Court if the Senate confirmed Trump's nomination of Amy Coney Barrett to the Court, she did not answer the question.
Much was made in media and social media circles about a fly that landed on Pence's head during the debate. The black fly was noticeable in contrast to Pence's white hair, distracting from an answer he gave praising the efforts of police officers.
The debate had a total of 57.9 million viewers on TV and had the second-largest television audience of any U.S. vice presidential debate. It was watched by an estimated 22 million more people than the amount who watched the 2016 vice presidential debate, behind the only debate between Sarah Palin and Joe Biden in 2008.