Presidential debates (2015-2016)
| Presidential Debates (2015-2016) |
|---|
 |
| General election debates |
| September 26, 2016 October 4, 2016 (VP) October 9, 2016 October 19, 2016 |
| Primary debates |
| Click here |
| More debate coverage |
| Commission on Presidential Debates Presidential debate prep teams, 2016 |
Have you subscribed yet?
Join the hundreds of thousands of readers trusting Ballotpedia to keep them up to date with the latest political news. Sign up for the Daily Brew.
|
Last updated on October 20, 2016
On October 3, 2012, an estimated 67.2 million people watched a debate between President Barack Obama (D) and the Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney.[1] To put that in perspective, that same year, 21.5 million people watched the season finale of American Idol, 111.3 million watched the Super Bowl and over 129 million—just under twice the number of people who watched the October debate—voted for president.[2][3][4] Studies have shown that at least two-thirds of voters in previous presidential elections have found debates to be either "very" or "somewhat" important in helping them to decide which candidate to vote for.[5]
These numbers underscore the place that presidential debates occupy within American society. If viewership is any indication, we like them less than football but substantially more than watching people sing. But when it comes to politics, debates are marquee events, and they have come to play a prominent role in the political process.
More than two dozen debates took place in the 2016 presidential election cycle (21 primary debates and four general election debates). This page served as Ballotpedia’s hub for all of them.
Our coverage included basic overviews of the debates, information on the moderators, statistical analyses, Insiders Surveys, and commentary written by guest writers and members of our senior writing staff. The final debate of the general election season is featured below. All other debates can be found here.
Featured Debate: October 19, 2016 - third presidential debate
The third and final presidential debate of the general election season took place on October 19, 2016, at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas in Las Vegas, Nevada.
What happened at the first and second debates?
The first presidential debate took place on September 26, 2016, in New York. Participants included Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump. Lester Holt of NBC News was the moderator. Ballotpedia surveyed more than 150 Democratic and Republican strategists, pollsters, media consultants, activists, lobbyists, and allied interest group operatives, after the conclusion of the September 26 debate and found that an overwhelming majority of Democratic Insiders and a plurality of Republicans thought that Clinton emerged as the victor in her showdown with Trump. Overall, almost two-thirds of the Insiders thought Clinton carried the evening.
An estimated 84 million people tuned in to the first debate, a record in the history of presidential debates. The previous record was held by Ronald Reagan (R) and Jimmy Carter (D), who attracted 80.6 million viewers in 1980.[6]
The second presidential debate of the general election season took place on October 9, 2016, at Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri. Participants again included Clinton and Trump. The debate was moderated by Martha Raddatz of ABC News and Anderson Cooper of CNN. In Ballotpedia's Insider Survey, 86 percent of Democratic respondents declared Clinton the “biggest winner” of the night. Almost two-thirds, 63 percent, of Republican respondents thought Trump got the better of Clinton in the debate.
The second debate had an estimated viewership of 66 million.[7] In the past, viewership of second debates has come close to or even exceeded the viewership of first debates. In 2008, 52.4 million watched the first debate between John McCain (R) and Barack Obama (D), but 63.2 million watched the second.[8] In 2012, 67.2 million watched the first debate between Mitt Romney (R) and Obama, while 65.6 million watched the second.[9]
Basic Information
Date: October 19, 2016
Time: 9:00 pm - 10:30 pm ET
Location: Las Vegas, Nevada
Venue: University of Nevada, Las Vegas
Moderator: Chris Wallace
Candidates: Hillary Clinton (D); Donald Trump (R)
Participants
On October 14, 2016, the Commission on Presidential Debates—a nonpartisan 501(c)(3) organization that oversees general election debates—announced that it had invited Hillary Clinton (D) and Donald Trump (R) to the third presidential debate. Libertarian candidate Gary Johnson and Green Party candidate Jill Stein were not invited because they did not meet the 15 percent polling average threshold required by the CPD. In a statement, the CPD said that its board of directors had "determined that the polling averages called for in the third criterion are as follows: Hillary Clinton (45.8%), Donald Trump (40.4%), Gary Johnson (7.0%) and Jill Stein (2.2%). Accordingly, Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump qualify to participate in the October 19 debate. No other candidates satisfied the criteria for inclusion in the October 19 debate."[10]
Format
The debate was composed of six 15 minute segments, each covering a major topic selected by the moderator and made public a week prior to the debate. Each segment opened with a question and each candidate had two minutes to respond, followed by responses to each other. The remaining time was used for deeper discussion.[11]
Topics
The CPD announced on October 12, 2016, that moderator Chris Wallace had selected six topics for the debate:[12]
- Debt and entitlements
- Immigration
- Economy
- Supreme Court
- Foreign hot spots
- Fitness to be President
How did the commission decide who got to participate in the debate?
According to the CPD website, the organization used criteria that seeks to identify candidates "whose public support has made them the leading candidates." The CPD outlined its inclusion criteria on its website:[13]
| Debate qualification criteria[13] |
|---|
|
The choice of a 15 percent threshold, according to the CPD, was based on studies that determined that such a threshold allowed for other candidates that had enough "public support" to retain the purpose of the debates—that is, "voter education." The CPD, based on their own analysis, said that 15 percent is an achievable percentage for third-party candidates.[13] The five polls were chosen by Dr. Frank Newport, editor-in-chief of Gallup, who considered the methodology, sampling size, and frequency of the polls as well as the reputation of the polling institution. The polls used in 2012 were ABC News/The Washington Post, NBC News/The Wall Street Journal, CBS News/The New York Times, Fox News, and Gallup.[13]
Polls
On August 15, 2016, the CPD released the five polls that it used to determine which candidates could participate in the 2016 presidential debates.[14] Candidates needed to have an average of at least 15 percent in the following polls to participate in one of the CPD's 2016 presidential debates:
- ABC-Washington Post
- CBS-New York Times
- CNN-Opinion Research Corporation
- Fox News
- NBC-Wall Street Journal
The CPD based its selection of polls on the following criteria, according to its August 15 press release:
| “ |
|
” |
Statistics
This article analyzes the central themes of the third and final general election presidential debate held on October 19, 2016, at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. The transcript prepared by The Washington Post was used to measure candidate participation and audience engagement.[16] Footage from the debate was consulted where there were ambiguities in the text.
For comparison, see the analyses of the first and second general election debates held on September 26, 2016, and October 9, 2016, respectively.
Participants
 Hillary Clinton (D) |
 Donald Trump (R) | |||
Segments
This debate featured 16 unique discussion segments covering domestic affairs, the economy, presidential fitness, and military strategy. These discussion segments were measured by any shift in the theme of a discussion prompted by the moderator, Chris Wallace.
- Supreme Court and the Constitution
- Second Amendment
- Abortion
- Immigration
- Clinton's paid speeches and WikiLeaks
- Russia's influence on American elections
- Job growth
- GDP
- Trump and allegations of sexual misconduct
- Clinton Foundation
- Outcome of election
- Military strategy in Iraq
- Syria
- National debt
- Medicare and Social Security
- Closing statements
Approximately one-fifth of the debate's discussion segments related to foreign affairs or national security. Eight countries were mentioned five or more times: China, Iran, Iraq, Japan, Mexico, Russia, Saudi Arabia, and Syria. References to the cities of Aleppo, Mosul, and Raqqa were counted in this tally.
Several political leaders and high-profile individuals were also named more than once in the debate by the candidates. President Barack Obama was the most frequently mentioned individual.
Candidate participation by speaking time
According to Bloomberg, Clinton spoke longer than Trump for the first time in a general election debate. She logged 41.8 minutes to Trump's 35.7 minutes.[17] Politico similarly measured the candidates' speaking time at 40.8 minutes and 34.8 minutes.[18]
Although Clinton spoke longer than Trump, they said nearly the same number of words. Clinton spoke 6,849 words and Trump 6,531 words.
Audience engagement
Audience engagement was measured by noting applause, cheering, and laughter in The Washington Post's transcript. Footage from the debate was consulted when the text was ambiguous about to whom the audience was responding.
Although the audience was instructed to remain silent throughout the debate, they audibly applauded or laughed in response to the candidates six times throughout the event. This was comparable to the audience engagement seen in the second presidential debate and approximately half of the audience engagement seen in the first presidential debate. Wallace, the moderator, twice instructed the audience to remain quiet.
Overall, Trump received one more instance of positive audience engagement than Clinton. He also received one negative response.
Comments and exchanges receiving an audience response
- Clinton: So I actually think the most important question of this evening, Chris, is, finally, will Donald Trump admit and condemn that the Russians are doing this and make it clear that he will not have the help of Putin in in this election, that he rejects Russian espionage against Americans, which he actually encouraged in the past? Those are the questions we need answered. We've never had anything like this happen in any of our elections before.
Wallace: Well?
Trump: That was a great pivot off the fact that she wants open borders, OK? How did we get on to Putin?
- Clinton: Donald thinks belittling women makes him bigger. He goes after their dignity, their self-worth, and I don't think there is a woman anywhere who doesn't know what that feels like. So we now know what Donald thinks and what he says and how he acts toward women. That's who Donald is. I think it's really up to all of us to demonstrate who we are and who our country is, and to stand up and be very clear about what we expect from our next president, how we want to bring our country together, where we don't want to have the kind of pitting of people one against the other, where instead we celebrate our diversity, we lift people up, and we make our country even greater. America is great, because America is good. And it really is up to all of us to make that true, now and in the future, and particularly for our children and our grandchildren.
Wallace: Mr. Trump...
Trump: Nobody has more respect for women than I do. Nobody.
- Trump: You should have changed the law. But you won't change the law, because you take in so much money. I mean, I sat in my apartment today on a very beautiful hotel down the street known as Trump...
Clinton: Made with Chinese steel.
- Clinton: The FBI conducted a year-long investigation into my e-mails. They concluded there was no case; he said the FBI was rigged. He lost the Iowa caucus. He lost the Wisconsin primary. He said the Republican primary was rigged against him. Then Trump University gets sued for fraud and racketeering; he claims the court system and the federal judge is rigged against him. There was even a time when he didn't get an Emmy for his TV program three years in a row and he started tweeting that the Emmys were rigged against him.
Trump: Should have gotten it.
- Clinton: So that is not the way our democracy works. We've been around for 240 years. We've had free and fair elections. We've accepted the outcomes when we may not have liked them. And that is what must be expected of anyone standing on a debate stage during a general election. You know, President Obama said the other day when you're whining before the game is even finished ... it just shows you're not up to doing the job.
- Trump: I think what the FBI did and what the Department of Justice did, including meeting with her husband, the attorney general, in the back of an airplane on the tarmac in Arizona, I think it's disgraceful. I think it's a disgrace.
Wallace: All right.
Trump: I think we've never had a situation so bad in this country.
Candidate analysis
|
|
Insiders Poll
Clinton prevails in final presidential debate
October 20, 2016
By James A. Barnes
Once again, Donald Trump had a tough debate night in the eyes of many political insiders, including many of his fellow Republicans. His final encounter with Democratic rival Hillary Clinton on October 19 at the University of Nevada at Las Vegas will be remembered for moderator Chris Wallace’s question to Trump on whether he would accept the results of the November 8 election. Trump replied, “I will tell you at the time, I will keep you in suspense.”
Ballotpedia surveyed more than 130 Democratic and Republican strategists, pollsters, media consultants, activists, lobbyists, and allied interest group operatives, after the conclusion of the debate. An overwhelming majority of 68 Democratic Insiders who responded thought the former secretary of state was the “biggest winner” of the debate. Only two said the evening was a draw and none said Trump won the candidate face-off.
At the same time, the 68 Republican Insiders were much more closely divided: a little more than a third said that Trump emerged as the big winner in Vegas, almost the same percentage said Clinton prevailed, and almost a third said the debate was a draw.
Wallace’s question about accepting the election’s results—and Trump’s response—was reminiscent of the very first debate among the Republican White House contenders back on August 6, 2015. With Wallace looking on, his Fox colleague, Bret Baier, opened that GOP face-off asking the stage full of 10 Republicans to raise their hand if any of them was unwilling to pledge not to run as a third party candidate, should he fail to capture the Republican nomination. Trump was the sole GOP debater who raised his hand.
And just like last August, Trump’s response to Wallace dominated post-debate analysis. “Trump blew it with his unwillingness to say he would accept election results and his complete inability to stay on message,” declared one Democratic Insider. “Trump was a little better tonight, but again lost the biggest moment decisively when he declined to accept the results of the election,” echoed another Democrat. “And as usual he will lose the post-debate fact checking, so any style points he might have gained were squandered.” A third Democrat added, “Only news of the debate is Trump saying he won’t necessarily accept the results of the election: Game over.”
Several Republican Insiders were no less critical of the Republican nominee. “Trump failed to convince anyone he was capable, and disqualified himself with his abhorrent answer about [not] accepting the result of the elections,” maintained one Republican Insider. Another judged, “Clinton killed Trump tonight, even before Trump committed electoral suicide by refusing to accept the result of the democratic process.” One GOP Insider allowed, “It could have been a better night for Trump if he could better explain his reasonable concerns about the integrity of the voting process.” This survey was conducted anonymously to encourage candor from the Insiders.
Trump, who seems to revel in thumbing his nose at political elites and what they think, doubled-down on his controversial stance the day after the Las Vegas encounter. At a campaign rally in Ohio, Trump playfully told his supporters that he will “totally accept” the election’s results, “if I win.”
James A. Barnes is a senior writer for Ballotpedia and co-author of the 2016 edition of the Almanac of American Politics.
Commentary
The columns below were authored by guest columnists and members of Ballotpedia's senior writing staff. The opinions and views belong to the authors.
To the end, Trump does it his way
October 20, 2016
By Karlyn Bowman
Karlyn Bowman, a widely respected analyst of public opinion, is a senior fellow and research coordinator at the American Enterprise Institute, a conservative think tank in Washington, D.C.
In the first Republican presidential primary debate on August 6, 2015, a Fox News moderator asked the 10 Republican candidates on the stage in Columbus, Ohio to raise their hands if they would refuse to pledge right then and there to support the eventual nominee of the GOP: Only Donald Trump raised his hand, and eruptions ensued among the other contenders.
Last night, the Fox News correspondent moderating the final 2016 general election presidential debate asked Trump if he would accept the result on November 8, to which he responded, “I will look at it at the time.”
Is what we saw last night vintage Trump? Is it the showman who likes to keep the audience in suspense? Is it someone who refuses to be pinned down? In the GOP primary debate, his comments roiled the ranks of the GOP contenders for weeks until he signed a loyalty pledge promulgated by the Republican National Committee. At a later point, several other candidates including Jeb Bush and Ted Cruz said they shouldn’t have answered the question as it wasn’t appropriate, and they backed away from pledging to support the nominee. Bush has steadfastly refused to endorse Trump, while Cruz, after famously wavering on supporting Trump in his speech to the GOP convention in Cleveland, has come around.
Whether that first answer to the first debate question of the 2016 presidential election season in Columbus contributed to Trump’s eventual victory is a matter of conjecture. But last night’s response, and the attempts by his supporters in Las Vegas post-debate interviews to walk it back, didn’t help him. It’s the debate moment everyone is discussing. Yet Trump stuck to the comment.
We’ve seen it all before in this candidate who has carved his own path during this campaign (cue Frank Sinatra). But it looks more and more like that path is a very difficult one, in large measure because of the candidate’s self-inflicted wounds. The debate was serious and substantive, and we heard deep disagreement on issues from abortion to foreign policy. Clinton was well rehearsed and smooth. Trump was better prepared, and he got in a few zingers. I don’t think it moved the needle very much. Moderator Wallace was almost always in command, and he did a superb job. He had the best performance of the evening.
Being half prepped is little better than coming in completely cold
October 20, 2016
By David Kusnet
David Kusnet was chief speechwriter for former President Bill Clinton from 1992 through 1994. He is a principal and the senior writer at the Podesta Group, a government relations and public relations firm in Washington, D.C.
Donald Trump showed up unprepared for his first debate with Hillary Clinton, with predictable results.
Last night, he was partially prepared for their third and final debate, and the outcome demonstrated that being half-prepped can be little better than coming in completely cold.
Having finally submitted himself to rehearsals that included New Jersey Governor Chris Christie playing the part of Hillary Clinton—a scenario likely to launch several segments on Saturday Night Live—Trump was ready to debate most major issues. For the first 30 minutes or so, speaking in a modulated voice, Trump mostly held his own in exchanges about the Supreme Court, abortion, immigration and trade.
But that’s not what most voters, nor the traditional and social media, will remember from last night’s debate. Instead, the three takeaways will be Trump’s refusal to say that he will accept the outcome of the election and his throw-away remarks about “bad hombres” and the “nasty woman.” And Trump muddled his message at the worst possible moment, the third debate, when the candidates have already made their first impressions.
For anyone preparing for a high-profile adversarial event, there are two lessons: First, if you blurt out something outrageous, no one will remember anything else you say. Public speakers need to remember that you leave the audience thinking about the most shocking thing you say, not the lengthiest or most factually supported segment of your remarks. So make sure to ratchet-up your most important points and tone down or leave out anything else.
Second, preparation means being ready to respond to likely questions and counterpunches, not just memorizing your own talking points.
Trump should have been prepared for a question about whether he would respect the election results. If he wanted to offer a more nuanced response than an unconditional “yes,” he could have said that he would accept the outcome under ordinary circumstances, but not if there were close and contested results as in 2000.
As for his two other bloopers, both were unforced errors.
Trump talked about “bad hombres” while discussing the issue at the core of his campaign: immigration. His stream of consciousness last night: “...we have some bad, bad people in this country that have to go out. We’re going to that have to go out. We’re going to get them out; we’re going to secure the border. And once the border is secured, at a later date, we’ll make a determination as to the rest. But we have some bad hombres here, and we’re going to get them out.”
Similarly, his interjection that Clinton is “such a nasty woman” came in response to a predictable point by his opponent that he would try to “get out of” the higher taxes that she would impose on wealthy Americans.
In short, Trump performed credibly for the first third of the debate but not at three pivotal—and predictable—moments. He has a pithy phrase for such a performer: “a choke artist.” His opponent knows how to prevent this: preparation.
Historical influence of general election debates
About 67 percent of those who voted in 2008 said that the presidential debates between Barack Obama (D) and John McCain (R) helped them choose which candidate to vote for. Nearly 80 percent of Americans watched at least some portion of the debates, and 41 percent watched them all.[19] Only the 1988 and 1996 debates were found to be less helpful in the decision-making process than helpful. Between 2000 and 2008, an average of 64 percent of voters found the debates helpful.[19]
Since 1988, the number of American's who found the presidential debates helpful in the decision-making process has fluctuated from 70 percent in 1992 to 41 percent in 1996.[20] According to the Pew Research Center, several factors have proven to make a debate significant in past elections. One is when the candidates are polling very closely. Another is when voters have "unresolved questions about the personal character of one, or both, of the candidates."[21] In the 2016 debates between Republican nominee Donald Trump and Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton, both of these factors could come into play.
Even when debates have affected voter preferences in past elections, they have only impacted polling numbers by a few points.[22][23] Looking at the numbers for the 1988 debate between George H.W. Bush (R) and Michael Dukakis (D), prior to the first debate, Bush was at 50 percent. After the debate, he dropped to 47 percent. His lead increased from 49 percent, prior to the second debate, to 50 percent after the debate. There have been some exceptions to this trend, however. In 1992, for example, Bill Clinton's (D) numbers dropped by 6 percent between the first debate and after the third debate. Ross Perot, the Independent Party candidate, gained 8 percent during the 1992 debates.[21] In 1972, Jimmy Carter entered the debates with about a 10 percent lead but lost that lead after the debates.[23]
Bill Clinton, in 1992, is the only candidate since 1988, who went into the debates with higher numbers than after the final debate. Clinton went from 50 percent to 44 percent.[21] In contrast, only three winning candidates seem to have been unaffected by the debates: Clinton in 1996, George W. Bush in 1988, and Reagan in 1984, though their numbers fluctuated during the debates.[21]
A study of campaign debates from 2000 to 2012 found that after a presidential debate 86.3 percent of voters from a nationwide sample remained unchanged in their preference for a presidential candidate, while 3.5 percent switched candidates, 268 went from undecided to decided, and 131 went from decided to undecided.[24]
Archived debates
|
Schedules
Democratic schedule
Click the schedule to return back to the top of the page.
Republican schedule
Click the schedule to return back to the top of the page.
See also
- Commission on Presidential Debates
- Presidential debate prep teams, 2016
- Presidential candidates, 2016
- Presidential election, 2016/Polls
Footnotes
- ↑ Nielsen, "First Presidential Debate Draws 67.2 Million Viewers," October 4, 2012
- ↑ The Guardian, " Super Bowl 2012 sets US TV ratings record for third year running," February 7, 2012
- ↑ CBS News, "American Idol finale earns lowest ratings ever," May 25, 2015
- ↑ Federal Election Commission, "FEDERAL ELECTIONS 2012 Election Results for the U.S. President, the U.S. Senate and the U.S. House of Representatives," July 2013
- ↑ Pew Research, "Most Say Presidential Debates Influence Their Vote," September 11, 2012
- ↑ Commission on Presidential Debates, "1980 Debates," accessed October 10, 2016
- ↑ CNN Money, "Second Clinton-Trump debate sees big ratings drop compared to first," October 10, 2016
- ↑ Commission on Presidential Debates, "2008 Debates," accessed October 5, 2016
- ↑ Commission on Presidential Debates, "2012 Debates," accessed October 5, 2016
- ↑ Commission on Presidential Debates, "CPD Invites Hillary Clinton and Donald J. Trump to Third Presidential Debate," October 14, 2016
- ↑ Commission on Presidential Debates, "Commission on Presidential Debates Announces Format for 2016 General Election Debates," July 7, 2016
- ↑ Commission on Presidential Debates, "Moderator Announces Topics for Third Presidential Debate," October 12, 2016
- ↑ 13.0 13.1 13.2 13.3 CPD, "An Overview," accessed August 26, 2015
- ↑ Commission on Presidential Debates, "Commission on Presidential Debates Announces Polls to be used in 2016 Candidate Selection Criteria," August 15, 2016
- ↑ Note: This text is quoted verbatim from the original source. Any inconsistencies are attributable to the original source.
- ↑ The final Trump-Clinton debate transcript, annotated," October 19, 2016
- ↑ Bloomberg, "Trump, Clinton Double Down on Their Strategies: Final Debate By the Numbers," October 20, 2016
- ↑ Politico, "Lives from the third presidential debate," October 19, 2016
- ↑ 19.0 19.1 Pew Research, "Most Say Presidential Debates Influence Their Vote," September 11, 2012
- ↑ Pew Research, "Section 1: Report Card on the Campaign," November 13, 2008
- ↑ 21.0 21.1 21.2 21.3 Pew Research, "When Presidential Debates Matter," September 24, 2004
- ↑ The following polling numbers were collected from the Pew Research Center, The New York Times and CBS, and The Washington Post polls.
- ↑ 23.0 23.1 The Washington Post, "Do presidential debates usually matter? Political scientists say no." October 3, 2012
- ↑ Argumentation and Advocacy, "Do Presidential Debates Matter? Examining a Decade of Campaign Debate Effects," Spring 2013
| |||||||||||
