Social media users, news outlets, and Bernie Sanders himself parroted false reports that those in the Democratic presidential debate audience paid thousands of dollars per ticket after the crowd seemed noticeably hostile toward Sanders.
The debate audience at the Gaillard Center in Charleston, South Carolina, on Tuesday was noticeably friendlier to candidates such as former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg and former Vice President Joe Biden than it was to the Vermont senator, a shift from debate audiences at previous debates.
At one point, the audience booed when Sanders said that Biden “has voted for terrible trade agreements,” and Sanders responded to the negative feedback: “No, no, no, no, no. Joe voted for the war in Iraq.”
That change prompted speculation that Bloomberg had paid people to be in the crowd, and a local news report on the difficulty for the general public to obtain tickets was distorted.
The root of the problem: The Charleston County Democratic Party appears to have publicized falsely how to get tickets to the debate.
Charleston news outlet Live 5 News WCSC reported on Feb. 6 that the county party website stated, “The only guaranteed way to get a ticket is to become a sponsor of the debate,” along with a link that suggested that sponsorship of a state party dinner would translate to debate tickets.
Sponsorship for that different event, the South Carolina Democratic Party’s “First in the South” dinner on Monday, ranged from $1,750 to $3,200, Live 5 News reported.
A day after its story on obtaining debate tickets via sponsorship, Live 5 News reported that the county party removed a sponsorship link to the “First in the South” event in its debate description.
“The campaigns of participating candidates will have a set number of free tickets to distribute to their supporters. Unfortunately, CCDP will not have any tickets to distribute,” the new language on the county party website said.
The $1,750 to $3,200 line in the original Live 5 News story was quickly misrepresented by Twitter users, multiple news outlets, and even Sanders himself as evidence that debate tickets cost at least $1,750 apiece, suggesting that a wealthy audience was predisposed to dislike the socialist Vermont senator.
“Do you know how much it cost to get a ticket?” Sanders told MSNBC after the debate. “I read that it cost $1,750. So to get a ticket to the debate, you have to be fairly wealthy. Most working people I know don’t spend $1,750 to get a ticket to a debate, and that’s problematic. But, you know, that’s what the DNC did.”
The Democratic National Committee clarified Tuesday that tickets were distributed in the same way as previous debates: allocated to debate sponsors, Democratic parties, and the Democratic presidential campaigns.
“Let me give you the facts: The tickets were divided up between the DNC, campaigns (with equal allocation), SC Dem Party, CBCI, CBS and Twitter. We invited local and community leaders, and DNC supporters. This is the most diverse audience,” DNC communications director Xochitl Hinojosa said in a tweet.
Let me give you the facts: The tickets were divided up between the DNC, campaigns (with equal allocation), SC Dem Party, CBCI, CBS and Twitter. We invited local and community leaders, and DNC supporters. This is the most diverse audience. https://t.co/KB1qRWePa6
— Xochitl Hinojosa (@XochitlHinojosa) February 26, 2020
The original Live 5 News story many cited to back up the $1,750 per ticket claim also noted that tickets for Tuesday’s were distributed in the same manner as previous debates and was “completely usual.”
It is unclear how individuals qualified as “DNC supporters” or exactly how many tickets each group received, but the South Carolina Democratic Party said that it allocated “nearly 400” tickets to party officials and community leaders “at no cost.”
Out of the nearly 400 tickets that we were able to allocate for this evenings debate, we welcomed hundreds of activists, county party leaders, community leaders, State Representatives, State Senators, candidates, & elected officials from every level of government in SC at no cost
— SC Democratic Party (@scdp) February 26, 2020
A Bloomberg campaign official told reporters after the debate that reports his campaign bought a heap of tickets were “categorically false” and argued the friendlier crowd was a result of genuine enthusiasm for Bloomberg.
