Political Debates

The Wednesday night debate was the second in a row that the front-runner, former President Donald Trump, skipped to have the spotlight follow him instead of his distant rivals. Viewership was down from the 12.8 million who tuned into August’s debate, which marked the first time much of America heard from the other Republicans hoping to take on Trump.

Semafor reviewed the rates the network shared with one prospective ad buyer for both the first and second GOP primary debates. For the first debate, the cost of a single 30-second spot topped $495,000. But the same 30-second spot during Wednesday night’s contest cost just over $200,000.

The former president’s apparent decision to skip the first debate is a major affront both to the Republican National Committee and to Fox News, which is hosting the event.

The California governor had taunted his Florida counterpart for months. Now, with his presidential campaign struggling, DeSantis agreed to a debate hosted by Sean Hannity.

It declines C-SPAN’s request for carriage, opting for national exposure on its co-owned NewsNation cable network. Above: WJW Cleveland’s debate between U.S. Senate candidates Rep. Tim Ryan (D-Ohio) and J.D. Vance aired on Nexstar-owned NewsNation.

The cable industry-backed C-SPAN is making sure cable and broadband subscribers have plenty of access to important political action in their states. With only two weeks before arguably one of the most important midterm elections in recent memory, C-SPAN is airing and streaming coverage of more than a dozen debates among candidates for governors, U.S. senators and representatives over the next week.

Direct political engagement with voters is waning as candidates surround themselves with supporters. “They run these campaigns in bubbles,” a former congressman says. Above: A debate in the Nevada governor’s race between Gov. Steve Sisolak (l) and Joe Lombardo (r) was streamed live for $99 before it was broadcast to the public the next day. (Ellen Schmidt/Associated Press)

In several key states with competitive races, Nexstar said it is the only local broadcaster with the scale and resources capable of bringing opposing candidates together for a live broadcast carried in virtually every county to an audience of millions of voters. Many of the Nexstar-hosted debates, including for the U.S. Senate races in Georgia and Pennsylvania and the Governor’s race in Texas, represent the only face-to-face meetings between the candidates ahead of the November elections.

Debate Night in America will feature news and analysis from NewsNation’s team of journalists, including George Will and Chris Stirewalt. Nexstar’s TV stations serving Texas, Georgia and Pennsylvania are hosting the events and also televising them locally.

An extended back-and-forth between the campaigns threw the presidential debate schedule into chaos Thursday, raising the question: Will there even be another debate? In addition to safety concerns, there is also a political standoff between the two campaigns, with a fight over the dates and settings of the two remaining debates.

Trump’s campaign is seeking to delay the final two debates by one week after the president pulled out of next Thursday’s event to protest the organizing commission’s decision to make the debate virtual. The Biden campaign said it will not agree to the delays, but instead wants the final debate to be a town hall style event to make up for next week’s scuttled showdown.

Minutes after the bipartisan Commission on Presidential Debates announced this morning that next week’s second debate would be held virtually, President Trump announced that he would not participate. “I’m not going to waste my time on a virtual debate,” he told Fox Business host Maria Bartiromo in an interview.

The events of the past week show that in-person showdowns won’t work in this pandemic, with this administration.

CNN and Univision drew 10.8 million total average viewers for Sunday night’s Democratic debate between Sen. Bernie Sanders and former vice president Joe Biden, handing CNN its most-watched debate of the election cycle, according to Nielsen Fast National data.

Univision’s Jorge Ramos has backed out of his planned role as one of the moderators of Sunday’s Democratic presidential debate because of possible exposure to the coronavirus, and the event itself has been moved from Phoenix to CNN’s studios in Washington, D.C.

Due to concerns about the spread of coronavirus. there will be no live audience when former Vice President Joe Biden and Senator Bernie Sanders, both vying for the Democratic nomination, face each other Sunday in Phoenix at the request of both candidates’ campaigns. CNN is scheduled to televise the event.

Gayle King and Norah O’Donnell tried to manage seven presidential candidates fighting for their lives Tuesday, just a week before the South Carolina and Super Tuesday primaries. Particularly at the start, the journalists looked like substitute teachers in front of an unruly school class.

Coming before the Nevada primary vote, Wednesday’s debate drew 12 million viewers tuned in to NBC, with 7.6 million on MSNBC — the third-largest audience ever for a single telecast on the cable network. The debate had more than twice the viewership of two previous Democratic Presidential debates.

The Democrats are heading to the Valley of the Sun next month for the 11th Democratic primary debate of the 2020 election cycle. CNN and Univision will host the debate on March 15, in Phoenix. It will air from 8 to 10 p.m. ET. Additional info, including moderators, venue and criteria, will be released at a later date, according to CNN.

Wednesday’s Democratic debate drops 31% in the key demo from CNN’s last month, attracting 6.5 million viewers.

Citing harassment allegations at the network, Cory Booker, Kamala Harris, Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren urged its parent, Comcast, to conduct an independent review.