The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Dems' 2020 primary debates to start June
Democrats will hold at least a dozen presidential primary debates starting in June 2019 and running through April 2020, with party Chairman Tom Perez promising rules that will give everyone in a potentially large field a fair shot at voters’ attention.
Making public his first in a series of decisions over the 2020 debate calendar, Perez said Thursday that the national party will sponsor six debates in 2019 and six more in 2020. That could be extended if the nomination process drags deep into the spring.
Exact dates, locations, media partners and qualifying thresholds will be announced in early 2019. But Perez says early voting states of Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada and South Carolina won’t host debates until 2020.
“Democrats want to put our eventual nominee in the strongest position possible to defeat Donald Trump,” Perez said.
He added that party officials have “listened to voices across our party about how we can make the primary process better” and set rules that “will help every candidate feel like they got a fair shake.”
Perez’s announcement Thursday comes after months of discussions among party officials, television networks and previous presidential campaigns. Mary Beth Cahill, who ran John Kerry’s 2004 presidential campaign, has led the process for Perez.
From the outset, Perez and Cahill stated a determination to avoid charges of favoritism that dogged Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton in 2016, in part because of the debate schedule established by then-Democratic National Committee Chairwoman Deb- bie Wasserman Schultz.
In the last election cycle, Wasserman Schultz did not commit to an initial six debates until May 2015; the first debate wasn’t held until that October. Democrats had a total of nine debates in that primary fight, not counting additional forums.
Perez also has used Repub- licans’ 2016 experience as a guide. Then GOP-Chairman Reince Priebus sanctioned 12 debates for a field of 18 candidates, beginning in August. Some early debates featured two stages on the same night, but the GOP divided the field into essentially a varsity lineup and a junior varsity lineup of long shots.
“Drawing lots strikes me as the fairest way to ensure everyone gets a fair shake,” Perez said.
Perez committed to using qualifying thresholds beyond polling for at least the June and July debates. As an example, he cited grass-roots fundraising. Party officials involved in debate discussions have also mentioned metrics such as the number of field offices in the early voting states.
Top Democrats also said that the two-stage approach and expansive qualifying thresholds could conceivably be extended to later debates if the field remains too large for one stage.
Perez did not say precisely how many candidates he believes is too large for one stage, though he referred to “a double-digit field” when discussing the June and July sessions. Details of the debates ultimately must be hammered out with the co-sponsoring television networks that pay for the events.