The Era of Debates Is Fading

Biden's debate gambit put the Commission on Presidential Debates out of its misery.

The Era of Debates Is Fading

Today for the Washington Monthly I wrote about the decision by President Joe Biden to propose two debates with Donald Trump in late June and early September, which betrays a sense of worry inside the Biden campaign, but could provide the jumpstart Biden is looking for.

One aspect of the debate gambit I did not explore was the circumvention by Biden and Trump of the Commission on Presidential Debates, the bipartisan organization which has sponsored the debates since 1988, but now probably never will again.

I have thoughts on what that means for the future of debates, but first, here's what's leading the Washington Monthly website:

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Trump Trial, Day 17: Cohen Goes Deeper and Survives Early Cross: Contributing Editor Jonathan Alter, reporting from the courtroom, brings to life the testimony of Trump's former fixer. Click here for the full story and click here for the Day 16 dispatch.

Can the Declaration of Independence’s Ideals Hold America Together?: Colin Woodard, director of Nationhood Lab, shares a new survey exploring what unites Americans. Click here for the full story.

The Court v. The Voters: Travis Crum, a Washington University law professor, reviews Joshua A. Douglas's new book, The Court v. The Voters: The Troubling Story of How the Supreme Court Has Undermined Voting Rights. Click here for the full story.

The Biden Campaign Is Worried: My analysis of the Biden's decision to schedule two early presidential debates. Click here for the full story.

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I have my quibbles with the past work of the Commission on Presidential Debates. But I considered it a good thing that the Commission existed.

The bipartisan-run operation established presidential debates as a tradition and expectation, largely setting the terms and minimizing needless dramas of whether both major party candidates would participate.

Members of both parties have had their criticisms of the Commission's debate moderators over the years, but the Trump-era GOP escalated matters considerably after the September 2020 debate, when Chris Wallace repeatedly interjected to keep Trump from running roughshod over the ground rules.

In 2022, the GOP chair announced, "the RNC voted to withdraw from the biased CPD, and we are going to find newer, better debate platforms."

A Commission-organized debate in 2024 was likely already doomed, but by setting up this year's debate without looping in the Commission, Biden put it out of its misery.

So while it's good that we are still having debates this year, the prospect for future debates just got shakier.

When every debate is fully contingent on both candidates concluding a debate is in their interest, and agreeing on terms themselves without any neutral entity applying pressure, not every election will feature a debate.

Back in 2022, you may recall that Democrat Katie Hobbs won the Arizona gubernatorial race after refusing to debate the election-denying Trump loyalist Kari Lake. I wrote afterwards:

Such a gambit would not work if the public viewed a successful debate performance as equivalent to a job interview, a necessary bar to clear. But ... modern debates are a far cry from Lincoln-Douglas. They are reality TV shows marked with soporific talking points and cheap insults. It’s not just that voters don’t care about debates. Voters have good reason not to care about debates. They are not especially useful at helping voters decide who is best suited to govern.

Since then, Trump refused to participate in the 2024 Republican presidential primary debates, and was not penalized by Republican primary voters.

Without an entrenched Commission applying tacit pressure on presidential candidates to participate, it is only a matter of time before a presidential candidate concludes, correctly, that participation is not required to win the election.

And every candidate, and every campaign operative, would rather spend their finite resources on events they can fully control, rather than setting aside days for debate prep for an event they cannot fully control.

Given the chance to skip, they will.

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Bill Scher, Washington Monthly politics editor