We are nearing the end of the “pre-season” of the nomination process. Next week will be the last official debate before the Iowa Caucuses (which are less than four weeks away). While there are some additional post-Iowa debates scheduled, what happens to them is still somewhat up in the air.
In any case, the results on the ground will soon make the debate about debates slip into the background. And, if the voters are sensible in November, the Democratic Party will not have to consider debate rules for another eight years (although the last clowns in the clown car that is the Trump Republican Party will have to decide the rules for the 2024 debate regardless of the results of this year’s election).
One thing that both parties should have learned from the last two cycles is that the size of the field matters. If you only have six or seven “recognized” candidates, there is no need to pick and choose between them. Whomever is running can be in the debate. The problem is when you have more candidates running. Even with a three-hour debate, seven candidates equals about twenty-five minutes of speaking time per candidate (less time for the moderators to ask questions). More candidates reduce that minimal time even more. And at a certain point, there are simply too many candidates and you need to have two (or more) separate debates for each round of debates.
In 2016, the Republicans opted to split their field based on poll results with the second tier candidates debating in the afternoon-early evening. But when you have fifteen candidates, you quickly get to a significant block of candidates who are statistically tied. Particularly early in the process, such a split effectively eliminates candidates before they even get a chance to pitch their case once.
The original process that the Democrats used made sense. Allowing candidates to qualify if they had enough individual donors or showed a pulse in polling prevented the party from displaying favoritism. Having the two sub-debates on separate nights and randomly assigning candidates to the two debates again kept the party from implicitly endorsing or eliminating a candidate. Of course, even with random selection, it’s impossible to prevent random selection from creating a “main” debate and a “other candidates” debate.
The problem for the Democrats have been the follow-up debates. On the one hand, since it takes 15% in a congressional district or states to win delegates, requiring candidates to have 5% nationally or 7% in a state at this last stage makes it hard for the non-qualifying candidates to make an argument that they are actually still viable. On the other hand, there is some argument that the ultimate decision should be for the voters. Additionally, for the December and January debates, there is the complicating factor that using polling as a criteria gives a lot of power to pollsters who get to choose which polls to do and when to do them. And the Thanksgiving to Christmas period often has fewer polls making it harder for candidates to get qualifying polls.
One potential solution for the future might be to transition from random selection to some criteria for making the main stage. If you have more than twelve candidates running, you could have two nights with one criteria for making the first night and a different criteria for being eligible for the second night. Of course, if you have too many candidates making the second night, then candidates will be upset about being randomly assigned to the first night. And candidates who only qualified for the first night would still complain about the rules putting them in the “other candidates” debate.
Alternatively, the party could more gradually increase the requirements and increase the period for qualifying polls. Again, these changes might not alter who qualifies for the later debates but less restrictive rules for the latter debate would reduce the thumb that the party is placing on the scale.
The bottom line is that nobody is going to be happy. While the leading candidates will never say, the front runners benefit from a larger debate stage (less time to attack them and less time for the “second tier” candidates to make their case) and the candidates who are gaining in the polls want a smaller debate stage so that it is just them and the front runners (allowing them to focus the campaign on them vs. the front runners). And voters benefit from the remaining candidates having enough time to make their case. On the other hand, the loyal supporters of the candidates who are reaching the end of the line are not going to like the party declaring that their candidate’s no longer have a realistic chance at winning.
Hopefully, when we have a nominee, everyone will be able to focus on the general election rather than trying to blame the party for making a difficult decision in a no-win situation. And the DNC can then take its time after the election to do a post-mortem on the debate process and figure out what can be done better in 2028.
