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Democratic presidential primary debate (March 15, 2020)
Date: November 3, 2020 |
 Donald Trump Joe Biden Howie Hawkins Jo Jorgensen
|
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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:
With only two pledged delegates as of Super Tuesday, it was mathematically impossible for Rep. Tulsi Gabbard to qualify.[1]
On March 12, 2020, the Democratic National Committee (DNC) announced the debate would take place in Washington, D.C., rather than Phoenix, Arizona, due to concerns about the coronavirus and cross-country travel. The DNC also announced that Ilia Calderón would replace Jorge Ramos as a moderator because Ramos had contact with an individual with coronavirus.[2]
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 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.
Qualifications
On March 6, 2020, the Democratic National Committee released the criteria to qualify for the debate through a delegate threshold of 20 percent.[3]
Next debate: March 15, 2020 |
Debate 1: June 2019 in Miami |
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To qualify, a candidate must have been allocated at least 20 percent of the total number of pledged delegates allocated from the following states and territories:[3]
- Alabama
- American Samoa
- Arkansas
- California
- Colorado
- Democrats Abroad
- Guam
- Idaho
- Iowa,
- Maine
- Massachusetts
- Michigan
- Minnesota
- Mississippi
- Missouri
- Nevada
- New Hampshire
- North Carolina
- North Dakota
- Northern Mariana Islands
- Oklahoma
- South* Carolina
- Tennessee
- Texas
- Utah
- Virginia
- Vermont
- Washington
The Democratic National Committee also released the following qualification rules:[3]
- The Total Delegate Allocation will be calculated by adding together all delegates allocated by the Associated Press or CNN to candidates who are actively campaigning for the nomination, those who have suspended or otherwise discontinued their campaigns, and those allocated as “uncommitted.”
- In the event that the Associated Press or CNN have not allocated a portion of the delegates available in any of the above contests due to the ongoing tabulation of votes, such unallocated delegates will not be counted in the Total Delegate Allocation.
- The number of delegates needed to qualify for the March Debate will be calculated by multiplying the Total Delegate Allocation by 0.20 and rounding the result to the nearest whole number.
- Each candidate’s delegate percentage will be calculated by dividing the number of pledged delegates allocated to them by the Associated Press or CNN by the Total Delegate Allocation and rounding the result to the nearest whole number.
Previous debate: February 25, 2020
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.
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.
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.
Democratic presidential debate participation, 2019-2020
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.[4] 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.[5]
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.[6]
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.[7]
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.[8]
| 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
- ↑ Business Insider, "The DNC just made it mathematically impossible for Tulsi Gabbard to make the next debate, leaving Biden and Sanders one-on-one," March 6, 2020
- ↑ Axios, "DNC announces Biden-Sanders debate will be moved to D.C. due to coronavirus," March 12, 2020
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 ABC News, "DNC unveils new qualifying rules for Arizona debate," March 6, 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
