49 Fun Facts About Presidential Debates

About how many viewers watched the first Kennedy-Nixon debate?

70 million viewers saw it, and polls that had put Nixon narrowly ahead swung to Kennedy, who won the election by a fraction of a percentage point.

The first Kennedy-Nixon debate came from a CBS studio in which Midwestern city?

Chicago brought Nixon more bad luck: arriving at the studio he struck the knee that had just put him in hospital, and he refused to call the debate off.

What did Richard Nixon turn down before his first debate with John F. Kennedy in 1960?

Television makeup from the studio's artist was declined by both men, but Kennedy arrived tanned, while Nixon, pale and just out of hospital, showed stubble and sweat under the lights.

Which far-right group did Donald Trump tell to "stand back and stand by" in the first 2020 debate?

The Proud Boys were the name Biden offered when Trump asked whom he should condemn; the group turned the phrase into a logo, and a day later Trump said they should stand down.

Which president, ahead in the polls, declined to debate Barry Goldwater in 1964?

Lyndon Johnson saw no reason to give his challenger the stage, and no president agreed to a televised debate until 1976, sixteen years after the first.

Which office were Lincoln and Douglas contesting in their famous 1858 debates?

US Senate: Douglas kept his seat, but the debates gave Lincoln the national name that won him the presidency two years later.

In which state were the Lincoln-Douglas debates of 1858 held?

Illinois had nine congressional districts, and the rivals had already spoken in two of them, so they agreed to meet once in each of the other seven.

In the 1980 debate, whom did Jimmy Carter say he had asked what the most important issue was?

His daughter Amy, then thirteen, had named the control of nuclear arms, he told viewers, as he took the last word in an exchange with Reagan over the arms treaty he had negotiated.

The first broadcast presidential debate, Dewey against Stassen on radio in 1948, was about outlawing which party?

The Communist Party was the single topic: Stassen wanted it banned and Dewey did not, and Dewey went on to win the Oregon primary and the nomination.

What happened in the first Ford-Carter debate of 1976 that halted it for 27 minutes?

The audio cut out during Carter's last answer, and the two men stood at their lecterns until it came back, "almost like robots" as Carter said later, neither willing to sit down.

Which region did Gerald Ford claim was free of Soviet domination in a 1976 debate?

Eastern Europe, he repeated, even when the questioner offered him the chance to take it back; Ford said later that he had meant Moscow would never dominate the Polish spirit.

Which organisation sponsored the presidential debates in 1976, 1980 and 1984?

The League of Women Voters walked away in 1988, saying the two campaigns' demands would "perpetrate a fraud on the American voter".

Who debated Ronald Reagan in the first 1980 debate after Jimmy Carter refused to appear?

John Anderson, a Republican congressman running as an independent, was the reason Carter stayed away: the president reckoned every vote for the third man was a vote taken from him.

Which phrase did Reagan use to deflect Carter in their single 1980 debate?

"There you go again" disarmed Carter's attack on his Medicare record; when Reagan tried the line again four years later, his opponent had seen it coming and was ready.

With which question did Ronald Reagan close his 1980 debate with Jimmy Carter?

"Are you better off than you were four years ago?" opened a run of questions in his closing statement: on prices in the stores, on unemployment, on America's standing in the world.

What was "Debategate"?

Reagan's team obtained Carter's briefing book before their 1980 debate; the story broke in 1983, and neither the FBI nor a House inquiry could establish who had passed it on.

Whose "youth and inexperience" did Reagan promise not to exploit in 1984?

Walter Mondale's smile at the joke hid the damage: he said later that he knew Reagan had "gotten me there", and that his campaign really ended that night.

Which congresswoman debated George Bush in the 1984 vice presidential debate?

Geraldine Ferraro, six years in Congress, told Bush on stage that she almost resented his "patronizing attitude" in offering to teach her about foreign policy.

Who told Dan Quayle "Senator, you're no Jack Kennedy" in the 1988 VP debate?

Lloyd Bentsen had tried the retort in rehearsal, knowing Quayle liked to compare his experience with Kennedy's; all Quayle could answer was "That was really uncalled for, Senator."

Which moderator opened a 1988 debate by asking Dukakis about his wife being murdered?

Bernard Shaw's question was fair, Dukakis said later; his own mistake was to answer it as coolly as the thousand times he had been asked about the death penalty before.

In the June 2024 debate, Biden said he would play golf with Trump on what condition?

Trump carries his own bag, Biden said, as a question about the two men's ages turned into an argument over golf handicaps; Trump replied, "Let's not act like children."

What poll share did the Commission on Presidential Debates require for an invite from 2000 to 2020?

15 percent, averaged across five national polls, was the bar from 2000; no candidate from outside the two main parties cleared it, and every court challenge to the rule failed.

Who was the third candidate on stage in all three 1992 debates?

Ross Perot did more than make up the numbers: a poll of viewers after the first debate rated him the winner, ahead of both Clinton and Bush.

What was George H.W. Bush criticised for doing during a 1992 debate?

Checking his watch cost him dearly, Bush said later: viewers read it as boredom, and he admitted he had been glad when the evening was over.

Which 1992 vice presidential candidate opened with the line "Who am I, why am I here"?

James Stockdale meant the questions to open the story of his life, a Medal of Honor pilot held for seven and a half years in Hanoi, but said he never got the chance to tell it.

What was new about the second presidential debate of 1992?

Voters asked the questions in the first town-hall debate; the format was Bill Clinton's idea, drawn from the town meetings that he had made a staple of his campaign.

In a 2012 debate, what did Barack Obama say the military had fewer of, after Romney complained about a smaller Navy?

Horses and bayonets, Obama said, because the nature of the military had changed: it now had aircraft carriers and nuclear submarines, and the question was not "a game of Battleship".

Which PBS anchor moderated twelve general-election debates between 1988 and 2012?

Jim Lehrer, nicknamed the dean of moderators, gave up the NewsHour anchor's chair in 2011 and still came back to moderate one more debate the following year.

Into what did Al Gore keep promising to put Medicare and Social Security during the first 2000 debate?

A lockbox, "iron clad" as he put it, came up again and again that night; Bush answered with a catchphrase of his own, dismissing Gore's figures as fuzzy math.

Who asked to delay the first 2008 debate over the financial crisis?

John McCain wanted both nominees back in Washington to work on the bank rescue; his opponent refused to postpone, and two days later McCain took the stage after all.

Who moderated the Palin-Biden vice presidential debate in 2008?

Gwen Ifill took the chair a day after a storm broke over her forthcoming book on politics and race in the age of Obama; she had moderated the running mates' debate in 2004 as well.

By what nickname did the final 2008 presidential debate make Ohio voter Joe Wurzelbacher famous?

Joe the Plumber had challenged Obama about taxes at a campaign stop in Ohio three days earlier; the Republican nominee then held him up all evening as the face of the middle class.

Which Sesame Street character did Mitt Romney say he loved in the first 2012 debate?

Big Bird became a campaign prop after Romney vowed to end the subsidy to public television: Obama's team answered with a mock attack ad that cast the bird as an "evil genius" and a menace to the economy.

What did Mitt Romney say he had received "binders full of" in the 2012 town-hall debate?

Women, he said, describing how he had sought female candidates for his cabinet as governor; a parody account built on the phrase had 30,000 followers before the debate was over.

Who moderated the 2012 town-hall debate between Obama and Romney?

Candy Crowley stepped in when Romney said Obama had taken 14 days to call the Benghazi attack an act of terror: "He did in fact, sir," she told him, and Obama asked her to say it louder.

Which Spanish word did Donald Trump use in the final 2016 debate for the "bad" people he promised to deport?

Hombres: "We have some bad hombres here, and we're going to get them out," he said; later the same night he cut across Clinton with "Such a nasty woman."

Who moderated the first Clinton-Trump debate, held at Hofstra University in 2016?

Lester Holt of NBC took the chair at a stand-in venue: the debate had been due to open at Wright State University, which pulled out over the cost of security.

In the final 2016 debate, which word did Clinton and Trump throw at each other over ties to Vladimir Putin?

Puppet was Clinton's word for the president Putin would rather have; Trump cut in with "No puppet, no puppet. You're the puppet."

Who moderated the first Trump-Biden debate in September 2020?

Chris Wallace of Fox News pleaded with Trump again and again to stop interrupting, and afterwards called the night "a terrible missed opportunity".

What did Joe Biden snap at Donald Trump after repeated interruptions in the first 2020 debate?

"Will you shut up, man?" came as Trump pressed him to say whether he would add justices to the Supreme Court, a question Biden was refusing to answer.

Why was the second 2020 presidential debate cancelled?

Trump refused a virtual format after his Covid diagnosis led the commission to move the debate online; on the night, the two men held rival town halls on different networks at the same hour.

What landed on Mike Pence's head during the 2020 vice presidential debate?

A fly settled on his white hair and stayed; the Biden campaign registered flywillvote.com, and Biden posted a picture of himself with a swatter, asking supporters to help the campaign fly.

What new rule was added for the final 2020 debate after the first one's interruptions?

Muted microphones were the commission's answer to the first debate: each man's was switched off, by production staff rather than the moderator, while his rival gave a two-minute opening answer.

What was unprecedented about the June 27, 2024 Trump-Biden debate?

It preceded both nominations: the two men were still presumptive nominees, and the early date left time for Biden, after a faltering night, to leave the race on July 21.

Which network produced the September 2024 debate between Trump and Kamala Harris?

ABC News staged it in Philadelphia with David Muir and Linsey Davis in the chairs; it opened with Harris crossing the stage to shake Trump's hand, the first debate handshake in eight years.

Which Ohio city did Trump claim had immigrants "eating the dogs" in the 2024 debate?

Springfield's city manager had reported no credible evidence of pets being harmed, as the moderator told Trump on the spot; dozens of bomb threats against the city's schools and offices followed.

Who faced JD Vance in the 2024 vice presidential debate?

Tim Walz, pressed on his claim to have been in Hong Kong during the Tiananmen Square protests, called himself "a knucklehead at times".

What has usually decided which candidate gets the first question in a general-election debate?

A coin toss gave Jimmy Carter the first question in 1976, and moderators were still announcing its winner in 2012; in June 2024 it decided instead where the two men stood and who spoke last.

What did the independent candidate in the 1992 debates say Americans would hear as jobs left for Mexico?

A giant sucking sound was his warning about the free-trade deal with Mexico, where he said factories could pay a dollar an hour with no health care or pollution controls.