In a hard-fought presidential campaign, even debates are subject to debate as supporters of President Trump and his Democratic challenger Joe Biden each try to present the other as unwilling participants in the scheduled fall presidential debates.
“President Trump is looking forward to debating Joe Biden, who is the only one who is being publicly advised to skip debates,” Trump campaign communications director Tim Murtaugh told the Washington Examiner. “In fact, we have asked for a greater number of debates and an earlier calendar.”
The Trump campaign has increasingly sounded the alarm over the debates occurring too late for early voting. “Voters in 16 states will already be casting their early votes before the first debate takes place on Sept. 29 as the schedule stands now,” Murtaugh said. “We don’t think it’s too much to ask that Americans get a look at the two candidates side by side before voters start voting.”
But the Biden campaign dismissed the mounting speculation, mostly in conservative circles, that its candidate would decline to participate in the debates. “Donald Trump and his allies at Fox News have decided an imaginary controversy about debates will be their latest attempt to distract Americans from the president’s disastrous response to the coronavirus, which has cost 150,000 Americans their lives and left millions jobless,” Biden spokesman T.J. Ducklo said in a statement to CNN.
Instead, the Biden camp turned the debate-ducking accusation back on Trump. “This is not a mystery,” Ducklo added. “The debate commission has invited both candidates to participate in three debates. Joe Biden has accepted. Donald Trump has not. Mystery solved.”
Plenty of commentators who are plausibly seen as more sympathetic to Biden than Trump have called for getting rid of the presidential debates, including veteran journalist Elizabeth Drew and columnist Thomas Friedman in the pages of the New York Times. But none have been directly associated with the Biden campaign, and only one prominent opponent of debating Trump has a history as a Democratic operative — Joe Lockhart, a former White House press secretary under President Bill Clinton.
Conservatives believe this suggests liberals and establishment media voices are fearful Biden would do poorly in the debates against Trump. He performed well in the vice presidential debates against Sarah Palin and Paul Ryan, respectively, but at 77 was noticeably less sharp in this year’s Democratic primary debates. And as the front-runner — Biden leads Trump by 7.4 points in the RealClearPolitics national polling average — the former vice president has every incentive to sit on his lead and avoid anything that could change the dynamics of the race.
At the same time, refusing to debate could give jibes against Biden’s mental acuity legs. A Fox News poll last month found that 47% thought Biden had the mental soundness to be president, compared to 43% for Trump, a smaller advantage than the Democrat enjoyed on most other issues tested. The pandemic has also been a factor in the debate schedule, with one original location — the University of Notre Dame — pulling out because of the outbreak.
“There will be presidential debates,” said Republican strategist Alex Conant. “Just like the conventions and campaigns, they will probably look different. But at some point, the nominees will face off on live television. Any candidate who actually refused to debate would quickly see their campaign overwhelmed by the issue — it would be impossible for them to advance any other message. Presidential debates are custom that voters expect.”
The Trump campaign is pressing to get the debates going pronto. “We want more debates,” campaign manager Bill Stepien told Fox & Friends on Monday. “We want debates starting sooner.” And when the Biden campaign opposes the idea, saying Trump is just looking to work the refs by picking his own moderators? “We are already seeing the liberal Left, the liberal media, trying to create trapdoors for Joe Biden to escape his commitment and his obligation to debate Donald Trump on a debate stage in front of the American people,” Stepien said.
This type of debate gamesmanship is not unusual. Ronald Reagan rallied in New Hampshire after pushing for the inclusion of other Republican candidates in what was originally supposed to be a one-on-one debate with George H.W. Bush, producing the famous “I paid for that microphone” moment. Reagan later advocated for third-party candidate John Anderson getting a place on the general election debate stage. Jimmy Carter, the Democratic incumbent, balked, and Reagan debated both candidates separately. After independent Ross Perot upended the 1992 debates, Bob Dole’s camp opposed his participation unless Green Party nominee Ralph Nader was included too.
In down-ballot races, it’s common for trailing candidates to ask for more debates. Jeff Sessions most recently did in his recent Alabama senatorial primary against Tommy Tuberville, which the former attorney general lost.
Trump has complained about unfair debate moderators in the past but only skipped one during the competitive phase of the 2016 GOP primaries. He was going to sit out another after the race was well in hand, but it got canceled. Trump then debated Hillary Clinton according to the commission schedule.
“We’re in the early stages of expectation settings, with some Democrats trying to make the case that Biden has nothing to gain by appearing with Trump or that an honest debate isn’t possible with Trump,” Conant said. “I wouldn’t be surprised if Trump’s team starts lowering their own expectations by claiming Trump is too busy to prepare or that the debate commission is biased. Given how important the debates could be this year, it’s not a surprise that the expectation-setting is happening so soon.”
The Commission on Presidential Debates has scheduled three presidential debates and one vice presidential debate this fall, with the first taking place at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland on Sept. 29.
