The 2016 Democratic debate season continues Saturday in Manchester, N.H., with three candidates taking the stage: Hillary Clinton, Martin O’Malley and Bernie Sanders. Here are a few graphs to put the Democrats’ 2016 debate schedule in context. (Click here for the full debate schedule).
Number of Debates
Many Democrats are upset with the limited number of debates scheduled for the 2016 primary cycle. Only six debates are scheduled, compared with the 12 scheduled Republican debates. Only four Democratic debates will happen before the first votes are cast in the Iowa Caucuses, while the GOP will host seven before then.
Like Republicans, Democrats are cutting down on the number of debates this cycle. From 1984-2008, Democrats averaged 14 debates per cycle.
The Democrats have not hosted so few debates in a presidential cycle since 1976. That cycle, however, few of the candidates realized the primary contests would be important under a new nomination system, explaining the relatively low number of debates.
This debate’s three candidates marks the fewest number of participants in a third debate since only Al Gore and Bill Bradley contested the Democratic presidential nomination in 2000.
Host States
Saturday will mark the 17th time New Hampshire has hosted a Democratic primary debate, the most of any state. Saturday is the sixth debate in Manchester.
New Hampshire has hosted a Democratic debate in every cycle since the 1984 process. Iowa has hosted the Democrats every year but 1992.
One major contrast between GOP and Democratic host sites comes in New York and Florida. Democrats have hosted nine debates in New York, while the Republicans have hosted only one there. The GOP has hosted nine debates in Florida, whereas Democrats will have hosted just two by the end of this cycle.
Calendar
By this time in the 2008 cycle, the Democrats had already hosted 12 of their 19 debates.
Dec. 18 is the latest date for the third Democratic debate of the season since the Bradley versus Gore primary of 2000. That cycle also had its third debate on Dec. 19, although the second debate had been just two days earlier.
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This year’s start reverses a trend of debate seasons starting earlier and earlier. The last three debate seasons have started earlier than the one prior.
Historically, January of an election year has been the most crowded month for presidential primary debates. The Democrats will have hosted 20 debates in January from 1984-2016, while Republicans will have hosted 23. Democrats have only one debate scheduled for January 2016. Contrast that with January 2008, which had four.
The latest Democratic debate came on June 3, 1984, when Walter Mondale faced off against Gary Hart and Jesse Jackson just 43 days before the Democratic National Convention began.
Airtime
Clinton got 10 more minutes of speaking time than Martin O’Malley did at the second Democratic debate, or 60 percent more. Assuming one-third is a “fair share” of speaking time, both Sanders and Clinton got more than their fair share.
Then again, Clinton and Sanders are considered to be the main competitors for the nomination. Perhaps they deserve more airtime than O’Malley, the longshot.
Topics
Topics Mentioned in Second Democratic Debate InsideGov
The last Democratic debate took place the day after the Paris terrorist attacks. Naturally, terrorism and foreign policy got the most attention. Those two topics, combined with guns and border security, made up nearly half of the moderators questions.
Entitlements were the most common topic unrelated to the Paris attacks, getting 14 percent of the questions.
Jason Russell is a commentary writer for the Washington Examiner.
