The Democratic Party won’t host this weekend’s head-to-head primary debate between Joe Biden and Bernie Sanders in Arizona.
The Democratic National Committee, the party’s organizing body, originally scheduled the election cycle’s 11th debate in Phoenix. But it decided Thursday to move the event to Washington, D.C., amid the coronavirus outbreak.
“Out of an abundance of caution and in order to reduce cross-country travel, all parties have decided that the best path forward is to hold Sunday’s debate at CNN’s studio in Washington, D.C., with no live audience,” DNC spokeswoman Xochitl Hinojosa wrote in a statement.
The DNC this week decided to scrap plans to have the debate in front of a crowd, while hosting partners CNN and Univision nixed the traditional press filing center and spin room.
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On Thursday, Hinojosa also announced Univision anchor and moderator Jorge Ramos “was in proximity with someone who was in direct contact with a person that tested positive for coronavirus.”
“Both Mr. Ramos and the person he was in contact with are in good health and symptom-free,” Hinojosa said. “Univision’s News Anchor Ilia Calderón will moderate the debate in his place.”
The plans are likely to disappoint the Arizona Democratic Party, which issued a statement after the first changes saying it was “deeply disappointed that the upcoming debate in Phoenix will not have a live audience,” but understood and appreciated “that the public’s health comes first.”
The spread of the respiratory illness has caused havoc on the primary. Both Biden and Sanders canceled rallies this week in Ohio, with Biden’s campaign shifting some of its events to a virtual setting ahead of the next round of voting on Tuesday.
