2016 Presidential Debate Schedule Set
Neither major political party has selected their nominee, or even begun the process of voting, but the Commission on Presidential Debates has already set the schedule for next year’s General Election Debates:
Next year’s general-election presidential debates will be in Ohio, Missouri, Nevada and Virginia, the Commission on Presidential Debates announced Wednesday.
The first general-election debate will be held Sept. 26, 2016, at Wright State University in Dayton, Ohio. Washington University in St. Louis will host the second general-election debate on Oct. 9, 2016. It will mark the fourth time a presidential debate has been held at the Missouri university, more than any other site. Candidates previously sparred in St. Louis in 1992, 2000 and 2004, and it was also the site of 2008’s vice presidential debate between Joe Biden and Sarah Palin.
The final presidential debate will be hosted by the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, on Oct. 19, 2016, with Hofstra University in Hempstead, New York, as the backup site.Longwood University in Farmville, Virginia, will host the VP debate on Oct. 4, 2016.
This is basically similar to the schedule that was used last year and during the 2008 season, of course, so there aren’t really many surprises here other than, perhaps, the selection of Farmville, Virginia, a college town in Central Virginia, as the location for the Vice-Presidential debate. As in the past, the Commission will likely restrict participants to the nominees of the two major parties, but given the fact that it is an organization largely controlled by the Republican and Democratic parties to begin with, that it’s entirely surprising.
