Independent news and information on political debates. Discussions include how the debates are rigged, who decides who makes it into the presidential debates, and what organizations are opening the debates.
A new national poll reveals something that will unnerve the Republican and Democratic Parties: An independent with national name recognition is polling nearly as well as Ross Perot did in 1992.
Fox News reports that when Biden and Trump (as the presumptive nominee) go head-to-head, it's a statistical toss-up with Biden at 47% and Trump at 46%. However, when Robert F Kennedy Jr is included, Biden drops to 39%, Trump drops to 36%, and Kennedy takes 22%.
The RNC will vote on a rule change this month that will require candidates seeking the Republican nomination for president to vow not to participate in debates hosted by the Commission on Presidential Debates. This could mean that in the immediate future, we could go back to a period in time when televised presidential debates were not common.
The New York Times reports:
What is the biggest highlight of a presidential election? Is it the ideas or proposals presented by the candidates? Is it how the candidates appealed to the most voters possible by presenting thoughtful, comprehensive solutions to the nation’s biggest problems?
Unfortunately, it’s neither of those. Instead, the biggest highlight of any presidential election in modern history is the division between the dominant two parties -- the hyperbolic rhetoric both sides use in the zero-sum contest to get voters to hate the other side.
The presidential debates have come to an end, but the debate over who should run these important events in a presidential election cycle continues.
There is no question that the Commission on Presidential Debates (CPD) has willfully kept candidates outside the Republican and Democratic Parties out of the debates. They have even gone so far as to forcefully remove third party candidates from being in the same vicinity as a debate.
The Free & Equal Elections Foundation is partnering with the Independent National Union. Together, along with co-host Open the Debates, they will present the third Open Presidential Debate of the 2020 election at Little America Hotel & Resort Grand Ballroom on October 24, 2020 at 6pm MDT in Cheyenne, Wyoming. The debate will take place during the inaugural Independent National Convention | INC 2020.
Editor's Note: Independent Voter News was a featured co-sponsor of the open presidential debate.
The Free and Equal Elections Foundation (FEEF) hosted its second independent open presidential debate of the year on October 8, an event slated as a rebuke to the presidential debate commission's debates, which have long lacked inclusion and substance.
Editor's note: This piece originally appeared on The Free and Equal Elections Foundation's website and has been republished on IVN with permission from the authors.
Last week’s showdown between the sitting U.S. President and his opponent was an exhausting production that played into the divisiveness of our country, rather than focusing on solutions.