Jim Messina suggested that the Democratic debates could begin as early as April, and I’m here to tell you that I think he’s right. These things are going to start earlier than they ever have before, and it wouldn’t shock me if they began in the spring. The reason is simple: everybody who can move the calendar forward has an incentive to do it.
Three groups are involved: the media organizations that produce the debates, the parties that sanction them and the candidates who participate. Candidates can always decline. Donald Trump skipped every Republican primary debate in 2024 and still became president. Enough other candidates will want the television exposure that those who sit out won’t decide the schedule. The networks and the parties will — and both have very big reasons to begin early.
For the networks, it comes down to money. There are only two things Americans still want to watch live: football and politics, specifically debates. The first Democratic debate of the 2020 cycle drew 15.3 million viewers on its first night and 18.1 million on its second. Monday Night Football now averages about 19 million. A network can create a Monday Night Football-sized audience for two consecutive nights, sell advertising around it and program days or weeks of coverage about who’s in, who’s out and what the candidates will say.
The audience declines after the first debate, unless you’re an absolute psycho like me, but even the later debates drew six to eight million viewers. That’s still a gigantic audience for almost anything on television. In 2019, CNN reportedly demanded a $300,000 advertising commitment before a company could even buy space surrounding its debate coverage. How are you going to tell me that networks won’t fall over themselves to make this happen?
The party has a different incentive: thinning the herd. Twenty-nine people declared for the Democratic nomination during the 2020 cycle, and 19 were gone by Iowa. The average campaign survived about 280 days, or closer to 235 if you remove some edge cases. An April debate would leave roughly ten months before South Carolina opens the calendar. At the 2020 rate of spending, a candidate would need nearly $10 million just to survive that period, and closer to $11 million with a cushion.
Starting early forces candidates to announce early, raise money early and survive the dead summer months when donors begin wondering whether they have any momentum. The networks want the advertising dollars, the party wants fewer candidates by the time voting begins and the candidates want television exposure so they can raise money and become one of the survivors. Some expected power players — Kamala Harris or AOC, for example — may stay out at first and see what happens.
But you know who will be there for every second of every debate? Yours truly.
Chapters
00:00:00 - Intro
00:02:26 - 2028 Debates
00:12:28 - Update
00:13:06 - Epstein
00:15:17 - Senate Noms
00:16:51 - Alaska
00:18:00 - Tom Merritt on Jensen Huang, AI, and more
01:14:42 - Feedback and Wrap-up
