November 21, 2023
We just learned the candidates for President of the United States – whoever they may be – will be debating each other three times next year.
But – at this point – neither the Republican or Democrat party have even agreed to allow their nominee to participate.
Before I get into that – you should know these debates – are being sponsored by the nonpartisan Commission on Presidential Debates – as they have been since 1988. The three presidential debates in 2024 will be held on September 16th at Texas State University, October 1 at Virginia State University and October 9th at the University of Utah. The one and only vice-presidential debate will be held on September 25th at Lafayette College in Pennsylvania.
So why aren’t the Republicans and Democrats jumping on this?
If you remember back in 2020 – when then President Trump and candidate Joe Biden were debating – there were a lot of complaints from trump about unfairness of the questions and he even refused to participate in the second 2020 presidential debate. Since then – the republican national committee has been considering a rule change that would force Republican presidential candidates to sign a pledge saying they would not participate in any debate sponsored by the commission on presidential debates.
And it’s not just the GOP that’s unhappy with the commission. The Democrats were also frustrated with the Commission back in 2020 over what they called its failure to enforce the rules when it came to trump.
Former President Trump has so far skipped all of the Republican primary debates but has said he would debate Biden if both of them became their party’s nominees. Biden’s campaign has not explicitly said whether Biden would participate in a debate with trump.
The commission on presidential debates says all three debates will start at 9 pm eastern and will run for 90 minutes commercial free. Next year we’ll learn more about the formats and moderators for each debate.
Read more from the Commission on Presidential Debates here.
