Democratic presidential primary debate (February 25, 2020)
Date: November 3, 2020 |
 Donald Trump Joe Biden Howie Hawkins Jo Jorgensen
|
Candidates on the issues • Battleground states • Electoral College • Pivot Counties |
September 29 debate • October 7 debate • October 15 debate • October 22 debate • Democratic debates |
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The Democratic Party held a presidential primary debate on February 25, 2020. It was the 10th of 11 Democratic primary debates that took place during the 2020 presidential election.
Seven candidates participated in the debate:
Candidates had until February 24 to qualify by one of three methods: (1) receive at least one pledged delegate from Iowa, New Hampshire, or Nevada; (2) receive 10 percent support in four national and/or South Carolina polls; or (3) receive 12 percent support in two South Carolina polls. For the full list of requirements, click here.
Debate overview
Video and transcript
By the numbers
Candidate highlights
This section includes highlights for each presidential candidate with a focus on policy. The following paraphrased statements were compiled from video of the debate. A candidate's opponents are generally not mentioned in his or her summary unless there was a significant exchange between them.
Joe Biden discussed gun legislation, race, healthcare, and foreign policy. Biden criticized Bernie Sanders for voting against the Brady Bill, which required background checks for gun purchasers. Biden said he earned the support of black voters because of his work on job creation and civil rights. He said he would win South Carolina. He criticized Tom Steyer for investing in private prisons. Biden said he was the only candidate who could pass major gun legislation because he defeated the NRA twice. He said Sanders voted to give immunity to gun manufacturers. To address racial inequities, Biden called for investing in black entrepreneurs, providing a first-time homebuyer tax credit, and opposing gentrification. He said he was involved with preventing Ebola from spreading in the United States. He said he would restore funding to the Centers for Disease Control. Biden said Chinese President Xi Jinping was a thug who placed a million Uyghurs in concentration camps. He said he would impose sanctions on Russia for election interference. Biden was the fifth-most active participant, speaking for 12.6 minutes.
Michael Bloomberg discussed electability, domestic policy, and foreign policy. Bloomberg said Russia was helping Bernie Sanders get nominated because he would lose to Donald Trump. He apologized for the stop-and-frisk program getting out of control in New York. He said the city was safer and had a better budget and schools because of his mayoral tenure. Bloomberg said he released three women from nondisclosure agreements and that his company had renounced using NDAs. He said he spent $100 million to help elect 21 new Democrats to Congress. He said Sanders’ nomination would produce a Republican majority in Congress and some state houses. He said his organizations, Moms Demand Action and Everytown, got background checks for gun buyers in 20 states. Bloomberg said that marijuana possession should be decriminalized and that prior possession convictions should be expunged. He said he would not pull all troops out of the Middle East in order to combat terrorism. Bloomberg said Chinese President Xi Jinping was not a dictator because he responded to the Politburo. He said he would not move the U.S. embassy in Israel back to Tel Aviv. He called for a two-state solution that leaves Israeli borders where they are. Bloomberg was the second-most active participant, speaking for 13.6 minutes.
Pete Buttigieg discussed electability, domestic policy, criminal justice, and foreign policy. Buttigieg said that a general election between Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump would be divisive. He said that he received more donations from individual contributors in Charleston, South Carolina, than from billionaires. Buttigieg said New York City’s implementation of the stop-and-frisk program was racist. He said Sanders’ Medicare for All proposal would lead to Trump’s re-election and Republican control of the House and Senate. He questioned how Sanders could deliver a revolution if he did not support a rule change to end the filibuster. Buttigieg said mental health services for students were not adequate. He said teachers needed more compensation and support. Buttigieg said housing, wage, and criminal justice issues were connected by racial voter suppression. He said the U.S. needed to restore its credibility abroad, listen to intelligence advisers and scientists, and coordinate with the international community. Buttigieg said Trump had nostalgia for the social order of the 1950s and Sanders for the revolutionary politics of the 1960s. He said it was a radical idea to eliminate all private insurance. Buttigieg was the sixth-most active participant, speaking for 11.6 minutes.
Amy Klobuchar discussed race, healthcare, electability, domestic policy, and foreign policy. Klobuchar said Mike Bloomberg’s implementation of the stop-and-frisk program was racist. She called for passing sentencing reform, investing in impoverished communities, increasing the minimum wage, and protecting voting rights. She said Bernie Sanders’ proposals would cost $60 trillion. She called for a nonprofit public option for health insurance. Klobuchar said a democratic socialist was not the best person to lead the Democratic ticket. She said she authored the bill to close the boyfriend loophole that allowed domestic abusers to obtain guns. She said she was the only candidate on stage who supported an assault weapons ban and still won in Republican districts. On housing, Klobuchar said she would address the Section 8 backlog and create incentives for affordable housing construction. To improve rural healthcare, Klobuchar discussed using critical access hospitals and expanding immigration for U.S.-educated foreign doctors. She said she wanted to legalize marijuana, allocate money for addiction treatment, and use drug courts. She said she led the bill to lift the embargo against Cuba. Klobuchar was the third-most active participant, speaking for 13.4 minutes.
Bernie Sanders discussed the economy, healthcare, domestic policy, and foreign policy. Sanders said the Trump economy was not working for real wage growth, healthcare, student debt, and homelessness. He criticized Joe Biden and Pete Buttigieg for receiving support from billionaires. Sanders said Medicare for All would lower overall healthcare costs. He said a 7.5% payroll tax was one option to fund his proposal. Sanders said 47 of the past 50 national polls showed him defeating Trump. He called his previous votes on gun manufacturer liability bad votes. He proposed universal childcare, tripling funding for Title I schools, making public college tuition-free, and paying teachers at least $60,000. Sanders said the criminal justice system was racist. He said he would legalize marijuana, expunge marijuana convictions, and help communities of color enter the legal marijuana market. He said climate change and infectious diseases required international cooperation. Sanders condemned authoritarianism and called China and Cuba dictatorships. He said the U.S. had overthrown governments in Chile, Guatemala, and Iran. He said dictatorships occasionally do good things. Sanders said he was proud to be Jewish. He called Israeli President Bibi Netanyahu a reactionary racist. Sanders was the most active participant, speaking for 15.5 minutes.
Tom Steyer discussed domestic policy, electability, race, and foreign policy. Steyer opposed a government takeover of the private sector but said unchecked capitalism had failed. He said it was a risk for the Democratic Party to choose between a democratic socialist and a former Republican. Steyer said he sold his investment in private prisons and had worked to end their use. He said he started a bank to address prejudice in the financial services industry. He said gun manufacturers owned the Senate and called for a congressional term limit of 12 years. Steyer said he was the only candidate on stage who believed in reparations for slavery. He said that the biggest threat to the U.S. was climate change and all foreign policy issues were about American leadership. He said Trump sided with a hostile foreign power and should have been impeached. Steyer was the least active participant, speaking for 7.1 minutes.
Elizabeth Warren discussed electability, discrimination, domestic policy, and foreign policy. Warren said she would make a better president than Bernie Sanders because she could get a progressive agenda enacted. She criticized Mike Bloomberg for supporting Republicans in Senate races in South Carolina, Pennsylvania, and Massachusetts. She discussed her experience with pregnancy discrimination. She said Bloomberg allegedly told an employee to kill her unborn child. She called for Bloomberg to release all people from nondisclosure agreements involving discrimination claims. She said her wealth tax could help close the racial wealth gap by canceling student loan debt and fund universal childcare and investments in historically black colleges. She said gun safety legislation could not pass with the filibuster. Warren said her secretary of education would be a former public school teacher who would oppose high-stakes testing. Warren said one cannot talk about housing without discussing race and discrimination. She said the U.S. needed a strong military, State Department, economy, and alliances. She called for Bloomberg to release his taxes. Warren said it was up to Israel and Palestine to determine the terms of a two-state solution. Warren was the fourth-most active participant, speaking for 12.9 minutes.
Qualifications
Next debate: March 15, 2020 |
Debate 1: June 2019 in Miami |
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On February 15, 2020, the Democratic National Committee released the criteria for qualifying for the debate via the Iowa caucuses and/or New Hampshire and South Carolina primaries or one of two polling thresholds. As with the February 19, 2020, debate, the criteria no longer included a donor threshold.[1]
Delegate threshold
To meet the delegate threshold, a candidate must have been allocated at least one pledged delegate from Iowa, New Hampshire, or Nevada to the Democratic National Convention as reported and calculated by the Iowa Democratic Party.[1]
Polling thresholds
To qualify by polling, a candidate must have met one of two thresholds.
- Four Poll Threshold: Receive 10 percent support or more in at least four national and/or South Carolina polls. The four polls must have been sponsored by different poll sponsors or in different geographical areas if sponsored by the same poll sponsor.
- Early State Poll Threshold: Receive 12 percent support or more in at least two polls in South Carolina. The two polls may have been from the same poll sponsor.
Eligible polls must have been sponsored by one of the following poll sponsors:
- Associated Press
- ABC News/Washington Post
- CBS News/YouGov
- CNN
- Fox News
- Monmouth University
- National Public Radio
- NBC News/Wall Street Journal
- NBC News/Marist
- New York Times
- Quinnipiac University
- USA Today/Suffolk University
- Winthrop University
Eligible polls must also have met the following requirements:
- Each poll must be publicly released between February 4, 2020, and February 24, 2020.
- Each poll’s candidate support question must have been conducted by reading or presenting a list of Democratic presidential primary candidates to respondents. Poll questions using an open-ended or un-aided question to gauge presidential primary support will not count.
- Each polling result must be the topline number—the aggregated result of the poll—listed in the original public release from the poll sponsor, whether or not it is a rounded or weighted number.[1]
Who qualified?
The following chart shows which Democratic presidential candidates qualified for the debate and how far each candidate was from crossing the polling and donor thresholds based on media reports.
Democratic presidential debate participation, 2019-2020
Previous debate: February 19, 2020
The Democratic Party held a presidential primary debate on February 19, 2020. It was the ninth of 11 Democratic primary debates that took place during the 2020 presidential election.
Candidates had until February 18 to qualify. They had three paths to qualify: (1) receive at least one pledged delegate in the Iowa caucuses or New Hampshire primary; (2) receive 10 percent support in four national, South Carolina, or Nevada polls; or (3) receive 12 percent support in two South Carolina or Nevada polls. The donor threshold used for previous debates was eliminated. For the full list of requirements, click here.
Six candidates qualified for the debate:
Video and transcript
By the numbers
Candidate highlights
This section includes highlights for each presidential candidate with a focus on policy. The following paraphrased statements were compiled from video of the debate. A candidate's opponents are generally not mentioned in his or her summary unless there was a significant exchange between them.
Joe Biden discussed electability, healthcare, foreign policy, and climate change. He said polling showed he performed best against Donald Trump in toss-up states. Biden said he helped pass the Affordable Care Act. Biden said Mike Bloomberg’s stop-and-frisk policy changed after the Obama administration sent monitors to New York City. He said Bloomberg should release women from nondisclosure agreements regarding sexual harassment and discrimination claims. Biden said he had extensive experience with policy in Latin America. Biden said $47 billion should be invested in wind, solar, and battery technology. He also said he would invest in high-speed rail and eliminate subsidies for oil and gas. He said minority communities were most harmed by climate change. He said fossil fuel executives and companies should be legally liable. Biden said he would focus on wealth generation and not raise taxes on small businesses. He said China should face tariffs over its coal use. He called for raising the corporate tax rate to 28 percent. He said if no Democrat secured enough delegates for the nomination, the convention process should work its will. Biden was the fifth-most active participant, speaking for 13.4 minutes.
Michael Bloomberg discussed electability, domestic policy, his wealth and businesses, and climate change. Bloomberg said Bernie Sanders could not defeat Donald Trump because of his healthcare plan. Bloomberg proposed a public option and capping charges. Bloomberg called his stop-and-frisk policy embarrassing. He said everyone on stage had been wrong on criminal justice at some point. Bloomberg said the complexity of his tax returns was delaying their release. Bloomberg said 70 percent of his foundation employees were women and they received equal pay. He said he would not release individuals from nondisclosure agreements for sexual harassment and discrimination claims. He said Bloomberg Philanthropies helped close 384 coal-fired power plants. He said the U.S. should move to renewables. Bloomberg said he was the only person on stage to start a business. He called for mentoring and seed capital programs and more branch banking. He questioned why Sanders criticized the tax code when the Senate wrote it. Bloomberg said he worked hard for his money and was giving it away. He said replacing capitalism with communism failed in other countries. He said if no Democrat secured enough delegates for the nomination, the convention should work its will. Bloomberg was the least-active participant, speaking for 13.1 minutes.
Pete Buttigieg discussed electability, leadership, climate change, and domestic policy. Buttigieg called Mike Bloomberg and Bernie Sanders the two most polarizing candidates on the stage. He questioned why some Sanders supporters were attacking union leaders and said leadership was about how you motivate people. Buttigieg said his healthcare proposal would not kick anyone off their existing plan. He said candidates should release their full medical records. Buttigieg criticized Amy Klobuchar for not remembering the name of Mexico’s president. He said experience and tenure in Washington, D.C., were not the same as judgment. Buttigieg said becoming carbon neutral by 2050 required the involvement of farming and industry. Buttigieg said he would not raise taxes on small businesses. He said an investment in the Latino community was an investment in the future. He opposed mandating employee ownership of companies. He said Sanders would raise taxes on incomes over $29,000 to fund his healthcare plan. He criticized Klobuchar’s record on immigration and said he had created a municipal ID program in South Bend for Dreamers. He said a candidate should not win the nomination until he or she won a majority of delegates. Buttigieg was the fourth-most active participant, speaking for 14.9 minutes.
Amy Klobuchar discussed electability, domestic policy, leadership, and climate change. Klobuchar said she brought in rural and suburban voters in Republican districts. She said Americans would lose insurance plans they had negotiated for under Bernie Sanders’ healthcare proposal. She said Medicare for All did not have enough Democratic support to become law. She defended her record as a prosecutor, including two dozen police-involved shootings of civilians that did not end in prosecution. Klobuchar said she was the first person on stage to support the U.S.–Mexico–Canada Agreement. Klobuchar said Buttigieg lost a statewide race in Indiana by 20 points and the nominee should be a proven winner. She said Buttigieg was wrong for being willing to classify Mexican cartels as terrorist organizations. Klobuchar called natural gas a transitional fuel. She said she believed in capitalism but the government should provide a check. Klobuchar said she worked on immigration bills during the Bush and Obama administrations and had a heart for immigrants. She said if no Democrat secured enough delegates for the nomination, the convention process should work. Klobuchar was the second-most active participant, speaking for 16.1 minutes.
Bernie Sanders discussed domestic policy, unions, his health, and climate change. Sanders said Mike Bloomberg’s stop-and-frisk policies as mayor of New York City would not grow voter turnout. Sanders said his campaign was not polarizing and instead gave a voice to the working class. He criticized Pete Buttigieg for receiving donations from billionaires and said he had more union support. Sanders said he would never sign a bill that reduced healthcare benefits for the working class. He described healthcare as a human right that should not make companies rich. Sanders said two cardiologists signed off on his health following his heart attack. Sanders said action needed to be taken on climate change in the next seven years. He said the Green New Deal would create 20 million jobs. Sanders said there was an immoral distribution of wealth. He defended his policy requiring partial worker ownership of large corporations and said workers should be able to sit on corporate boards. He said a socialist society already existed for the rich through tax breaks and subsidies and not for the poor. Sanders said the candidate with the plurality of delegates should win the nomination. Sanders was the third-most active participant, speaking for 15.8 minutes.
Elizabeth Warren discussed Mike Bloomberg’s record, healthcare, climate change, and domestic policy. Warren said Bloomberg had a history of hiding his tax returns, making sexist remarks, and supporting racist policies. Warren said Pete Buttigieg’s healthcare plan would leave millions of people uninsured and that Amy Klobuchar did not have a detailed plan. Warren said that Bloomberg’s stop-and-frisk policy intentionally targeted black and brown men and he was willfully ignorant of its effect. Warren said Bloomberg should release women from nondisclosure agreements regarding sexual harassment and discrimination claims. Warren called for stopping new drilling and mining on public lands with room for exceptions. She said she would pass an anti-corruption bill and end the filibuster to fight the fossil fuel industry. She said she would commit one trillion dollars to address environmental injustice. She said there was an entrepreneurship gap for black and Latino entrepreneurs. Warren called for a wealth tax. Warren said Buttigieg accepted money from big donors and changed his positions. Warren said if no Democrat secured enough delegates for the nomination, the convention should work its will. Warren was the most active participant, speaking for 16.8 minutes.
Democratic presidential primary debates, 2019-2020
- See also: Democratic presidential nomination, 2020
The following table provides an overview of the date, location, host, and number of participants in each scheduled 2020 Democratic presidential primary debate.
History of televised presidential debates
Although the 1960 general election debate between John F. Kennedy (D) and Richard Nixon (R) is frequently cited as the first televised presidential debate, two came before it.
The first televised presidential debate took place on May 21, 1956, when an ABC affiliate in Miami broadcast a Democratic primary debate between Adlai Stevenson and Estes Kefauver.[2] In the general election that year, Stevenson and incumbent President Dwight Eisenhower (R) used surrogates in a televised debate on November 4, 1956. They were represented by former First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt (D) and Sen. Margaret Chase Smith (R), respectively.[3]
The Kennedy-Nixon debates that took place four years later showed the importance of television as a visual medium, "Nixon, pale and underweight from a recent hospitalization, appeared sickly and sweaty, while Kennedy appeared calm and confident. As the story goes, those who listened to the debate on the radio thought Nixon had won. But those listeners were in the minority. ... Those that watched the debate on TV thought Kennedy was the clear winner. Many say Kennedy won the election that night," TIME reported on the 50th anniversary of the event.[4]
While a handful of presidential primary debates were held between 1964 and 1972, the televised presidential debate did not become a staple of American politics until 1976.[5]
Overview
The following chart shows the number of presidential and vice presidential debates that took place in each election cycle between 1960 and 2024.
List of presidential debates, 1960-2024
The following table shows the date, location, and moderators for each presidential debate between 1960 and 2024.[6]
| Presidential debates, 1960-2024 | ||
|---|---|---|
| Date | Location | Moderator |
| September 26, 1960 | Chicago, IL | Howard K. Smith, CBS News |
| October 7, 1960 | Washington, D.C. | Frank McGee, NBC |
| October 13, 1960 | Los Angeles, CA / New York, NY | Bill Shadel, ABC |
| October 21, 1960 | New York, NY | Quincy Howe, ABC News |
| September 23, 1976 | Philadelphia, PA | Edwin Newman, NBC News |
| October 6, 1976 | San Francisco, CA | Pauline Frederick, NPR |
| October 22, 1976 | Williamsburg, VA | Barbara Walters, ABC News |
| September 21, 1980 | Baltimore, MD | Bill Moyers, PBS |
| October 28, 1980 | Cleveland, OH | Howard K. Smith, ABC News |
| October 7, 1984 | Louisville, KY | Barbara Walters, ABC News |
| October 21, 1984 | Kansas City, MO | Edwin Newman, formerly NBC News |
| September 25, 1988 | Winson-Salem, N.C. | Jim Lehrer, PBS |
| October 13, 1988 | Los Angeles, CA | Bernard Shaw, CNN |
| October 11, 1992 | St. Louis, MO | Jim Lehrer, PBS |
| October 15, 1992 | Richmond, VA | Carole Simpson, ABC |
| October 19, 1992 | East Lansing, MI | Jim Lehrer, PBS |
| October 6, 1996 | Hartford, CT | Jim Lehrer, PBS |
| October 16, 1996 | San Diego, CA | Jim Lehrer, PBS |
| October 3, 2000 | Boston, MA | Jim Lehrer, PBS |
| October 11, 2000 | Winson-Salem, N.C. | Jim Lehrer, PBS |
| October 17, 2000 | St. Louis, MO | Jim Lehrer, PBS |
| September 30, 2004 | Coral Gables, FL | Jim Lehrer, PBS |
| October 8, 2004 | St. Louis, MO | Charles Gibson, ABC |
| October 13, 2004 | Tempe, AZ | Bob Schieffer, CBS |
| September 26, 2008 | Oxford, MS | Jim Lehrer, PBS |
| October 7, 2008 | Nashville, TN | Tom Brokaw, NBC |
| October 15, 2008 | Hempstead, NY | Bob Schieffer, CBS |
| October 3, 2012 | Denver, CO | Jim Lehrer, PBS |
| October 16, 2012 | Hempstead, NY | Candy Crowley, CNN |
| October 22, 2012 | Boca Raton, FL | Bob Schieffer, CBS |
| September 26, 2016 | Hempstead, NY | Lester Holt, NBC |
| October 9, 2016 | St. Louis, MO | Martha Raddatz, ABC Anderson Cooper, CNN |
| October 19, 2016 | Las Vegas, NV | Chris Wallace, FOX |
| September 29, 2020 | Cleveland, OH | Chris Wallace, FOX |
| October 22, 2020 | Nashville, TN | Kristen Welker, NBC |
| June 27, 2024 | Atlanta, GA | Dana Bash and Jake Tapper, CNN |
| September 10, 2024 | Philadelphia, PA | David Muir and Linsey Davis, ABC |
See also
- Presidential candidates, 2020
- Democratic presidential nomination, 2020
- Republican presidential nomination, 2020
- Presidential debates (2015-2016)
Footnotes
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 Democratic Party, "DNC Announces Qualification Criteria For South Carolina Democratic Presidential Primary Debate," February 15, 2020
- ↑ Illinois Channel, "From 1956, the First Televised Presidential Debate," June 15, 2016
- ↑ United States Senate, "The First Televised Presidential Debate," accessed June 12, 2019
- ↑ TIME, "How the Nixon-Kennedy Debate Changed the World," September 23, 2010
- ↑ Center for Politics, "Eight Decades of Debate," July 30, 2015
- ↑ Commission on Presidential Debates, "Debate History," accessed September 28, 2020
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