Democratic presidential primary debates, 2020

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2020 Presidential Election Date: November 3, 2020

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The Democratic National Committee (DNC) held 11 presidential primary debates during the 2020 presidential election between June 2019 and March 2020.

"My goal in this framework is to give the grassroots a bigger voice than ever before; to showcase our candidates on an array of media platforms; to present opportunity for vigorous discussion about issues, ideas and solutions; and to reach as many potential voters as possible. That is how we will put our nominee in the strongest position possible to defeat Donald Trump, and how we will help elect Democrats up and down the ballot," DNC Chairman Tom Perez said.

Last debate: March 15, 2020

See also: Democratic presidential primary debate (March 15, 2020)

The Democratic Party held a presidential primary debate on March 15, 2020. It was the eleventh of 11 Democratic primary debates that took place during the 2020 presidential election.

To qualify, a candidate must have received at least 20 percent of the pledged delegates awarded in primary contests up to March 15, the day of the debate. Two candidates qualified:

• Joe Biden
• Bernie Sanders
  

HIGHLIGHTS

Date: March 15, 2020, at 8:00 p.m. ET

Location: Washington, D.C.

Venue: CNN's studios

Partners: CNN, Univision, and CHC Bold

Moderators: Dana Bash, Jake Tapper, and Ilia Calderón

Video and transcript

• Watch the debate on CNN.com.
• Read Rev.com's transcript of the debate.

Candidate highlights

This section includes highlights for each presidential candidate with a focus on policy. The following paraphrased statements were compiled from the transcript 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 the coronavirus pandemic, healthcare, the economy, climate change, and foreign policy. Biden called for increasing coronavirus testing and hospital beds and tents. He said the government should pay for the crisis and not people. Biden compared his coronavirus approach to the Obama administration’s handling of the Ebola outbreak. Biden said he would use the military to help with structural needs. Biden said people were looking for results, not a revolution. He said Italy’s single-payer system was not working against the coronavirus. He said the 2008 bailout prevented a depression. He said undocumented immigrants should not be deported for seeking care for the coronavirus. Biden said he would expand Obamacare and add a public option. He said Sanders had not explained how he would pass or fund Medicare for All. Biden called for publicly funded federal elections. He said Sanders had nine super PACs. Biden said he never voted to cut Social Security. He said he did not like the 2005 bankruptcy bill but tried to improve it. He criticized Sanders for voting against the Brady bill on gun regulation five times. Biden said he would appoint a black woman to the Supreme Court and select a woman as his running mate. He said he opposed the Hyde Amendment on abortion funding. He said only undocumented immigrants who committed felonies should be deported. He said he would increase the number of immigration judges at the border. On climate change, Biden called for ending offshore drilling, taking on the fossil fuel industry, and spending $20 billion to prevent Brazil from burning the Amazon. Biden criticized Sanders for saying China had reduced extreme poverty. He said changes in China were marginal and that millions of Uyghurs were imprisoned. Biden said he was increasing voter turnout.

Bernie Sanders Bernie Sanders discussed the coronavirus pandemic, healthcare, the economy, climate change, and foreign policy. Sanders said people should not have to worry about affording coronavirus treatment. He said there needed to be more beds and medical personnel. Sanders said the pandemic exposed the dysfunctionality of the healthcare system. He said he would use the National Guard to contain the virus if necessary. Sanders said workers who lose their jobs because of the pandemic should be made whole. He said China lied about the pandemic but the U.S. had to work with China and other countries. He said there should not be profiteering during this time. Sanders said illegal behavior on Wall Street should not have been rewarded with a bailout in 2008. He said Medicare for All would cover undocumented immigrants. He said the power structure in the U.S. allowed billionaires to control the legislative agenda. Sanders said Biden previously discussed cuts to Social Security. He criticized Biden for his past support for the 2005 bankruptcy bill, Defense of Marriage Act, and the war in Iraq. Sanders said leadership was about taking unpopular votes. Sanders said half of his Cabinet would be women. He called for universal childcare. Sanders defended his vote against the 2007 immigration bill and compared its guest-worker program provisions to slavery. He said the U.S. energy system needed to be transformed away from fossil fuel. He said Biden’s climate change plan was not enough. Sanders said he condemned authoritarianism in Cuba, Saudi Arabia, China, Russia, and elsewhere. He said China made progress in ending extreme poverty. Sanders said his campaign was winning with voters under 30, who were necessary to win the general election.

Debate guidelines

The DNC provided the following overall framework for the presidential primary debates:

“

The DNC is announcing 12 presidential primary debates over the course of the 2020 cycle, with six debates in 2019 and six in 2020. The first two debates will occur in June and July 2019. After a break in August, there will be one debate per month for the rest of 2019. The DNC currently plans to hold its last debate in April of 2020. All early-state debates will be held in 2020. The DNC will not bar candidates from participating in forums in which one candidate appears on stage at a time. The DNC will ask candidates to refrain from participating in debates other than the 12 debates sanctioned by the DNC. In order to give our candidates a platform to make their case to voters, the DNC will seek to maximize the viewership of each debate. The DNC will announce specific dates, locations, sponsors and more in 2019. Given the fluid nature of the presidential nominating process, the DNC will continuously assess the state of the race and make adjustments to this process as appropriate, and always transparently.

”

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.

2020 Democratic presidential primary debates
Debate	Date	Location	Host	Number of participants
First Democratic primary debate	June 26-27, 2019	Miami, Florida	NBC News, MSNBC, and Telemundo	20 candidates
Second Democratic primary debate	July 30-31, 2019	Detroit, Michigan	CNN	20 candidates
Third Democratic primary debate	September 12, 2019	Houston, Texas	ABC News and Univision	10 candidates
Fourth Democratic primary debate	October 15, 2019	Westerville, Ohio	CNN and The New York Times	12 candidates
Fifth Democratic primary debate	November 20, 2019	Georgia	MSNBC and The Washington Post	10 candidates
Sixth Democratic primary debate	December 19, 2019	Los Angeles, California	PBS NewsHour and Politico	7 candidates
Seventh Democratic primary debate	January 14, 2020	Des Moines, Iowa	CNN and The Des Moines Register	6 candidates
Eighth Democratic primary debate	February 7, 2020	Manchester, New Hampshire	ABC, WMUR-TV, and Apple News	7 candidates
Ninth Democratic primary debate	February 19, 2020	Las Vegas, Nevada	NBC News and MSNBC	6 candidates
Tenth Democratic primary debate	February 25, 2020	Charleston, South Carolina	CBS News and Congressional Black Caucus Institute	7 candidates
Eleventh Democratic primary debate	March 15, 2020	Washington, D.C.	CNN, Univision, and CHC Bold	2 candidates

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. 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.

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.

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.

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.

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)