Democratic presidential primary debate (February 7, 2020)

2020 Presidential Election Date: November 3, 2020

Presidential candidates Donald Trump Joe Biden Howie Hawkins Jo Jorgensen

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The Democratic Party held a presidential primary debate on February 7, 2020. It was the eighth of 11 Democratic primary debates that took place during the 2020 presidential election.

Candidates had until February 6 to qualify. They needed to receive at least one pledged delegate in the Iowa caucuses or meet certain polling and fundraising thresholds. For the full list of requirements, click here.

Seven candidates qualified for the debate:

• Joe Biden
• Pete Buttigieg
• Amy Klobuchar
• Bernie Sanders
• Tom Steyer
• Elizabeth Warren
• Andrew Yang

Debate overview[edit]

Video and transcript[edit]

• Watch the debate on the ABC News YouTube channel here.
• Read the Rev.com transcript of the debate.

By the numbers[edit]

Candidate highlights[edit]

This section includes highlights for each presidential candidate with a focus on policy. The following paraphrased statements were compiled from video of the debate. A candidate's opponents are generally not mentioned in his or her summary unless there was a significant exchange between them.

Joe Biden discussed electability, healthcare, foreign policy, and domestic policy. He said he took a hit in Iowa and did not expect to do well in New Hampshire. He said Donald Trump would use Bernie Sanders’ democratic socialist label against him and that Pete Buttigieg did not have a broad support base. Biden said he would raise the capital gains rate to pay for healthcare and criticized the cost of Sanders’ healthcare plan. Biden called for a standing ovation for Alexander Vindman. He said he would not have ordered the strike against Qasem Soleimani because there was no evidence of an imminent threat. He said Afghanistan could not be made a whole country but a small military footprint there was necessary to prevent attacks. Biden said he beat the National Rifle Association twice. He said pharmaceutical executives should go to jail for criminal activity. Biden said he would not appoint a Supreme Court justice who did not believe in unenumerated constitutional rights. He opposed expanding the court. He called for increasing loan opportunities for minority business owners and tripling the funding for at-risk schools. Biden was the second-most active participant, speaking for 19.6 minutes.

Pete Buttigieg discussed political style, healthcare, foreign policy, domestic policy, and race. Buttigieg criticized Bernie Sanders’ style of politics as divisive. He opposed requiring people to accept a public healthcare plan. Buttigieg said his policies would energize rather than polarize Americans. Questioned on his experience, Buttigieg said he offered a perspective that would bring change to Washington. Buttigieg said the potential investigation into Biden’s son was dishonorable. Buttigieg said there was no evidence the strike on Qasem Soleimani made the U.S. safer. He said servicemembers deserved a president who would evaluate all intelligence and diplomatic options. Buttigieg said incarceration should not be the response to drug possession. He said there should be accountability for corporations that suppress evidence on the addictiveness of products. Buttigieg called for increasing the number of Supreme Court justices and appointing some outside of a partisan process. He said systemic racism existed everywhere, including South Bend. He called for retroactive expungements of marijuana-related crimes. Buttigieg was the third-most active participant, speaking for 18.5 minutes.

Amy Klobuchar discussed electability, healthcare, impeachment, and domestic policy. Klobuchar said she was concerned about having a democratic socialist nominee. She said the Medicare for All debate was not real since most Democratic senators did not support the bill. She criticized Buttigieg for changing his position on Medicare for All. She said Senators Doug Jones and Mitt Romney showed courage in the impeachment trial. She said it was easy for Buttigieg to criticize Washington, D.C., and harder to actually lead. Klobuchar said Democrats needed an optimistic economic agenda. She said she repeatedly won in red congressional districts. Klobuchar said she ran a drug court focused on treatment but did prosecute major dealers. She said a settlement against opioid manufacturers and an opioid tax could fund treatment programs. Klobuchar said she would only appoint judges who respected precedent including Roe v. Wade. She said there was systematic racism and disenfranchisement across the country. She said one of her major priorities would be to overturn Citizens United. She said the United States–Mexico–Canada Agreement improved labor inspections and better positioned the U.S. against China. Klobuchar was the fourth-most active participant, speaking for 16.5 minutes.

Bernie Sanders discussed voter turnout, healthcare, foreign policy, domestic policy, and race. Sanders said the best way to defeat Donald Trump was to increase voter turnout, particularly among workers and young voters. Sanders said Joe Biden’s healthcare plan would lead to $50 billion of spending over 10 years. He said insurance and pharmaceutical companies should be challenged. Sanders expressed concern with the political precedent set by Trump’s acquittal. Sanders said he earned 25% of the Republican vote in Vermont. He said political assassinations would lead to international anarchy. He said the State Department should be strengthened. Sanders said his previous votes on gun policy reflected his constituency in Vermont and that his views had changed. He said his litmus test for appointing a judge was support for Roe v. Wade. He said the criminal justice system was racist and that money should be invested in education rather than incarceration. He criticized Buttigieg’s support from billionaires and called for the public funding of elections. He criticized the United States–Mexico–Canada Agreement for not mentioning climate change. Sanders was the most active participant, speaking for 20.1 minutes.

Tom Steyer discussed voter turnout, impeachment, foreign policy, domestic policy, and race. Steyer said turnout among all Democrats, particularly black and Latino voters, was necessary to defeat Donald Trump. Steyer said Democrats needed to focus on defeating Trump on the economy rather than who had the best healthcare policy. He said he was worried about Pete Buttigieg’s lack of experience. He said he started the Need to Impeach movement in 2017 and was partly inspired by his father’s prosecution of Nazi war criminals. He said the military complex ignored diplomacy and climate change. Steyer said Trump had appointed so many judges because Republicans blocked Barack Obama’s judicial nominees from being considered. Steyer said he supported reparations for black Americans. He opposed cash bail and private prisons. Steyer said policy comes out of narrative. He called for a commission on race to repair the damage done by Jim Crow and related policies. Steyer was the sixth-most active participant, speaking for 13.9 minutes.

Elizabeth Warren discussed corruption, healthcare, impeachment, foreign policy, domestic policy, and race. Warren said Democrats could unify the party and appeal to moderates by fighting corruption. On her first day in office, Warren said she would defend the Affordable Care Act and reduce the cost of commonly used drugs. She said the rule of law needed to be re-established and called for an independent commission in the Justice Department to investigate government crimes. Warren said troops should not be sent to areas where problems could not be solved militarily. She said combat troops should be brought home. Warren said gun safety needed to be treated as a public health emergency like auto safety. On abortion, Warren said there should be a national law to protect the right of a woman’s choice. She said the criminal justice system disproportionately affected black Americans. She said the U.S. needed race-conscious laws on housing, education, and the economy. She criticized politicians who appealed to black voters during elections but did not create concrete policy change. She said a wealth tax could fund early childhood education and quality childcare. Warren was the fifth-most active participant, speaking for 15.9 minutes.

Andrew Yang discussed capitalism, the economy, corruption, drug treatment, a universal basic income, and race. Yang said the capitalism versus socialism debate was obsolete. He advocated a human-centered model of capitalism that emphasizes measuring wellness, life expectancy, and clean water and air over GDP. He said Trump was not the cause of all problems but rather the symptom of a disease in communities with economic challenges. Yang said imprisoning previous presidents would start a disastrous pattern that is mostly present in developing countries. He said pharmaceutical profits from addiction should be used to pay for treatment programs. Yang said racism could not be eliminated through a patchwork of race-conscious laws. He said universal basic income would reshape communities of color and alleviate childhood poverty. Yang was the least-active participant, speaking for 8.1 minutes.

Qualifications[edit]

On January 17, 2020, the Democratic National Committee released the critiera for qualifying for the debate via the Iowa caucuses or polling and fundraising.^[1]

Delegate threshold[edit]

To meet the delegate threshold, a candidate must have been allocated at least one pledged delegate from Iowa to the Democratic National Convention as reported and calculated by the Iowa Democratic Party.^[1]

Alternate threshold[edit]

To qualify for the debate, a candidate could alternatively meet a polling and fundraising threshold.^[1]

Polling criteria[edit]

A candidate has two ways to meet the polling threshold to qualify for the February 7 debate:

• Four Poll Threshold: Receive 5 percent support or more in at least four national or early state polls—New Hampshire, South Carolina, and/or Nevada. The four polls must be sponsored by different poll sponsors or in different geographical areas if sponsored by the same poll sponsor.

• Early State Poll Threshold: Receive 7 percent support or more in at least two single state polls in New Hampshire, South Carolina, and/or Nevada. The two polls may be from the same geographical area and poll sponsor.

Eligible polls must be sponsored by one of the following poll sponsors:

Eligible polls must also meet the following requirements:

• Each poll must be publicly released between December 13, 2019, and February 6, 2020.
• Each poll’s candidate support question must have been conducted by reading or presenting a list of Democratic presidential primary candidates to respondents. Poll questions using an open-ended or un-aided question to gauge presidential primary support will not count.
• Each polling result must be the topline number—the aggregated result of the poll—listed in the original public release from the poll sponsor, whether or not it is a rounded or weighted number.^[1]

Fundraising[edit]

Candidates must also provide verifiable evidence that they reached the following fundraising thresholds:

• Donations from at least 225,000 unique donors; and
• A minimum of 1,000 unique donors per state in at least 20 states.

Who qualified?[edit]

The following chart shows which Democratic presidential candidates qualified for the debate and how far each candidate is from crossing the polling and donor thresholds based on media reports.

Democratic presidential primary debates, 2019-2020[edit]

See also: Democratic presidential nomination, 2020

The following table provides an overview of the date, location, host, and number of participants in each scheduled 2020 Democratic presidential primary debate.

Democratic presidential debate participation, 2019-2020[edit]

History of televised presidential debates[edit]

Although the 1960 general election debate between John F. Kennedy (D) and Richard Nixon (R) is frequently cited as the first televised presidential debate, two came before it.

The first televised presidential debate took place on May 21, 1956, when an ABC affiliate in Miami broadcast a Democratic primary debate between Adlai Stevenson and Estes Kefauver.^[2] In the general election that year, Stevenson and incumbent President Dwight Eisenhower (R) used surrogates in a televised debate on November 4, 1956. They were represented by former First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt (D) and Sen. Margaret Chase Smith (R), respectively.^[3]

The Kennedy-Nixon debates that took place four years later showed the importance of television as a visual medium, "Nixon, pale and underweight from a recent hospitalization, appeared sickly and sweaty, while Kennedy appeared calm and confident. As the story goes, those who listened to the debate on the radio thought Nixon had won. But those listeners were in the minority. ... Those that watched the debate on TV thought Kennedy was the clear winner. Many say Kennedy won the election that night," TIME reported on the 50th anniversary of the event.^[4]

While a handful of presidential primary debates were held between 1964 and 1972, the televised presidential debate did not become a staple of American politics until 1976.^[5]

Overview[edit]

The following chart shows the number of presidential and vice presidential debates that took place in each election cycle between 1960 and 2024.

List of presidential debates, 1960-2024[edit]

The following table shows the date, location, and moderators for each presidential debate between 1960 and 2024.^[6]

See also[edit]

• Presidential candidates, 2020
• Democratic presidential nomination, 2020
• Republican presidential nomination, 2020
• Presidential debates (2015-2016)

Footnotes[edit]

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