Presidential Debates Trivia
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49 free Presidential Debates trivia questions with answers — history quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
Presidential debates have decided elections since Richard Nixon refused makeup in 1960. These presidential debate trivia questions cover every famous moment: Gerald Ford's Eastern Europe blunder, Reagan's one-liners, Lloyd Bentsen's "you're no Jack Kennedy", Admiral Stockdale asking who he was, Bush checking his watch, the fly on Mike Pence and the June 2024 debate that pushed Joe Biden out of the race. Every answer is sourced, with a short explanation so you learn something even when you miss.
30 of 49 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01About how many viewers watched the first Kennedy-Nixon debate?
70 million
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.
Q 02The first Kennedy-Nixon debate came from a CBS studio in which Midwestern city?
Chicago
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.
Q 03What did Richard Nixon turn down before his first debate with John F. Kennedy in 1960?
Television makeup
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.
Q 04Which far-right group did Donald Trump tell to "stand back and stand by" in the first 2020 debate?
The Proud Boys
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.
Q 05Which president, ahead in the polls, declined to debate Barry Goldwater in 1964?
Lyndon Johnson
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.
Q 06Which office were Lincoln and Douglas contesting in their famous 1858 debates?
US Senate
US Senate: Douglas kept his seat, but the debates gave Lincoln the national name that won him the presidency two years later.
Q 07In which state were the Lincoln-Douglas debates of 1858 held?
Illinois
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.
Q 08In the 1980 debate, whom did Jimmy Carter say he had asked what the most important issue was?
His daughter Amy
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.
Q 09The first broadcast presidential debate, Dewey against Stassen on radio in 1948, was about outlawing which party?
Communist 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.
Q 10What happened in the first Ford-Carter debate of 1976 that halted it for 27 minutes?
The audio cut out
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.
Q 11Which region did Gerald Ford claim was free of Soviet domination in a 1976 debate?
Eastern Europe
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.
Q 12Which organisation sponsored the presidential debates in 1976, 1980 and 1984?
The League of Women Voters
The League of Women Voters walked away in 1988, saying the two campaigns' demands would "perpetrate a fraud on the American voter".
Q 13Who debated Ronald Reagan in the first 1980 debate after Jimmy Carter refused to appear?
John Anderson
Q 21In the June 2024 debate, Biden said he would play golf with Trump on what condition?
Trump carries his own bag
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."
Q 22What poll share did the Commission on Presidential Debates require for an invite from 2000 to 2020?
15 percent
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.
Q 23Who was the third candidate on stage in all three 1992 debates?
Ross Perot
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.
Q 14Which phrase did Reagan use to deflect Carter in their single 1980 debate?
There you go again
"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.
Q 15With which question did Ronald Reagan close his 1980 debate with Jimmy Carter?
Are you better off?
"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.
Q 16What was "Debategate"?
Reagan's team obtained Carter's briefing book
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.
Q 17Whose "youth and inexperience" did Reagan promise not to exploit in 1984?
Walter Mondale's
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.
Q 18Which congresswoman debated George Bush in the 1984 vice presidential debate?
Geraldine Ferraro
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.
Q 19Who told Dan Quayle "Senator, you're no Jack Kennedy" in the 1988 VP debate?
Lloyd Bentsen
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."
Q 20Which moderator opened a 1988 debate by asking Dukakis about his wife being murdered?
Bernard Shaw
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.
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.
Q 24What was George H.W. Bush criticised for doing during a 1992 debate?
Checking his watch
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.
Q 25Which 1992 vice presidential candidate opened with the line "Who am I, why am I here"?
James Stockdale
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.
Q 26What was new about the second presidential debate of 1992?
Voters asked the questions
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.
Q 27In a 2012 debate, what did Barack Obama say the military had fewer of, after Romney complained about a smaller Navy?
Horses and bayonets
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".
Q 28Which PBS anchor moderated twelve general-election debates between 1988 and 2012?
Jim Lehrer
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.
Q 29Into what did Al Gore keep promising to put Medicare and Social Security during the first 2000 debate?
A lockbox
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.
Q 30Who asked to delay the first 2008 debate over the financial crisis?
John McCain
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.