Help us improve in just 2 minutes—share your thoughts in our reader survey.
Vice presidential debate (October 7, 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 |
Democratic • Republican • Libertarian • Green • Constitution |
2028 • 2024 • 2020 • 2016 |
The Commission on Presidential Debates held a vice presidential debate on October 7, 2020, between Vice President Mike Pence (R) and Sen. Kamala Harris (D-Calif).
The debate was 90 minutes long and divided into 10-minute segments. USA Today's Susan Page moderated the debate.[1] Harris and Pence discussed the coronavirus pandemic, economy, climate change, China, foreign policy, abortion, healthcare, race, and the election. Click here for highlights from each candidate.
 Kamala Harris (D) |
 Mike Pence (R) |
To qualify, a candidate had to meet certain constitutional, ballot access, and polling requirements. Click here to learn more about them.
Debate overview
Video and transcript
By the numbers
Candidate highlights
This section includes highlights for each vice 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.
Kamala Harris called Trump's response to the coronavirus pandemic the greatest failure of any administration. She said Trump and Pence knew the virus was airborne and deadly in January 2020 and did not provide Americans with the information they needed. She said Biden’s coronavirus plan focused on contact tracing and testing. She said she would take a vaccine if public health officials recommended it.
Harris discussed her career as a state attorney general and senator. She said voters had a right to know about the president’s health and tax records. She said Trump was $400 million in debt. Harris said Biden would repeal Trump’s tax bill and not raise taxes on anyone making less than $400,000 a year. She said Trump rode the coattails of the economic recovery Biden created. She said Biden did not want to end fracking. She said Trump was trying to end the Affordable Care Act and that this would eliminate protections for people with preexisting conditions.
Harris said the Trump administration does not believe in science. She said Biden would invest in renewable energy and reach net zero emissions by 2050. She said Trump lost the trade war with China and 300,000 manufacturing jobs. She said Biden saved the auto industry. Harris said Trump disbanded the office responsible for monitoring pandemics. She said Trump made America unsafe through a unilateral and isolationist foreign policy. She said Trump insulted and did not care about service members.
Harris said President Lincoln waited until after his re-election to fill a Supreme Court vacancy that occurred 27 days before the presidential election. She said Trump should also wait. She said Trump had not appointed a Black judge to a lifetime appointment on the courts of appeal. Harris said justice was not done in Breonna Taylor’s case and called for criminal justice reform. She said implicit bias existed in law enforcement. Harris said Trump has openly attempted to suppress the vote.
Mike Pence said Trump suspended all travel from China in response to the coronavirus pandemic and saved hundreds of thousands of lives. He said he believed the U.S. would have a vaccine before the end of the year. Pence said Trump surged resources to states with high fatality rates. He said the Rose Garden event announcing Amy Coney Barrett’s Supreme Court nomination followed scientific advice. He said Trump trusted Americans to make decisions about their own health.
Pence said Harris was undermining public confidence in a vaccine. He said the Obama administration failed during the swine flu pandemic and were lucky that it was less lethal than COVID-19. Pence said Trump paid millions of dollars in property and payroll taxes. He said Trump had added back 11.6 million jobs since the pandemic began. Pence said Biden wanted to ban fracking. He said the United States reduced CO2 emissions through innovation rather than mandates.
Pence said the United States lost 200,000 manufacturing jobs when Biden was vice president. He said Harris put her environmental agenda ahead of American workers by opposing the United States–Mexico–Canada trade agreement. Pence said Trump strengthened alliances in the Asia Pacific and destroyed the ISIS caliphate. He said Biden failed to save ISIS hostage Kayla Mueller.
Pence questioned whether Harris would give Amy Coney Barrett a fair hearing because of Barrett's Christian faith. He said he was pro-life. He said the Trump administration stood behind the separation of powers and a nine-seat Supreme Court. Pence said he trusted the justice system in Breonna Taylor’s case. He said there was no excuse for the rioting and looting that followed George Floyd’s death. He said Harris did nothing for criminal justice reform in California. He said Democrats had spent the past three years trying to overturn the results of the 2016 election. Pence said universal mail-in voting created the opportunity for fraud.
Debate format
The Commission on Presidential Debates said, "The debate will be divided into nine segments of approximately 10 minutes each. The moderator will ask an opening question, after which each candidate will have two minutes to respond. The moderator will use the balance of the time in the segment for a deeper discussion of the topic."[2]
Following President Donald Trump's COVID-19 diagnosis, the commission announced the candidates would be seated 13 feet apart rather than the originally planned seven feet. The candidates were also separated by plexiglass.[3]
Candidate selection criteria
The Commission on Presidential Debates (CPD) used the following criteria to select candidates to participate in the 2020 general election presidential debates:[4]
- The candidate must satisfy the constitutional eligibility requirements, including being at least 35 years old, a natural born citizen, and a resident of the United States for fourteen years.
- The candidate must appear on enough state ballots to be eligible to secure at least 270 electoral votes—a majority in the Electoral College—or more.
- The candidate must receive, on average, at least 15% support nationally in the most recent polls from five public opinion polling organizations. The CPD will use the following polls:
- ABC/Washington Post Poll
- CNN Poll
- Fox News Poll
- NBC/Wall Street Journal Poll
- NPR/PBS NewsHour/Marist Poll
General election debates
- See also: Presidential debates, 2020
The following table provides an overview of the date, location, and host in each scheduled 2020 general election debate.
| 2020 general election debates | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Debate | Date | Location | Host | |
| First presidential debate | September 29, 2020 | Cleveland, Ohio | Case Western Reserve University and Cleveland Clinic | |
| Vice presidential debate | October 7, 2020 | Salt Lake City, Utah | University of Utah | |
| Second presidential debate | Canceled |
Miami, Florida | Adrienne Arsht Center | |
| Third presidential debate | October 22, 2020 | Nashville, Tennessee | Belmont University | |
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.[5] 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.[6]
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.[7]
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.[8]
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.[9]
| 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 debates, 2020
- Presidential candidates, 2020
- Democratic presidential nomination, 2020
- Republican presidential nomination, 2020
- Presidential debates (2015-2016)
Footnotes
- ↑ Axios, "Commission on Presidential Debates announces moderators," September 2, 2020
- ↑ Commission on Presidential Debates, "CPD Announces 2020 Moderators," September 2, 2020
- ↑ Politico, "Plexiglass to separate Harris and Pence at VP debate," October 5, 2020
- ↑ Commission on Presidential Debates, "Commission on Presidential Debates Announces Polls to be used in 2020 Candidate Selection Criteria," August 28, 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
