Should third-party candidates be in presidential debates? What voters say in new poll
Most American voters believe the 2024 presidential debates should include other candidates besides President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump, new polling reveals.
In a May 20 Harvard CAPS/Harris poll, 71% of respondents said independent or third-party candidates “that clear a viable threshold, such as Robert F. Kennedy Jr.” should be allowed on the debate stage. That figure includes 66% of Democrats and 70% of Republicans.
Less than one-third of respondents, 29%, said the debate should solely be between Biden and Trump.
The poll, conducted between May 15-16, surveyed 1,660 registered voters and has a margin of error of 2 percentage points.
The poll comes as Biden and Trump — the presumptive nominees of their respective parties — have agreed to debate twice, on CNN in June and on ABC News in September.
The agreement followed a May 14 announcement from the Biden campaign that the president was open to debating Trump, but only if certain conditions were met.
One of his stipulations was that the debates be one-on-one so as not to waste time “on candidates with no prospect of becoming president.”
Both CNN and ABC News, however, have left the door open for other candidates by publishing criteria required to qualify for their debates.
To make the CNN debate stage, candidates must be listed on enough state ballots to meet the 270 electoral count needed to win the presidency, the outlet said.
Candidates must also receive 15% support or higher in four national polls from an approved list of organizations, including Quinnipiac University, NPR/PBS NewsHour/Marist College and the New York Times/Siena College.
“Biden and Trump will meet those requirements, but they make the others less likely to be able to participate — though, in Kennedy’s case, it’s not an impossibility,” CNN said.
For the second debate, ABC News established the same 15% polling standard, according to the Associated Press.
In a May 19 interview with Fox News, Kennedy said he will meet the criteria needed to qualify for the CNN debate.
“We are in discussions with CNN,” Kennedy, an independent candidate, told Fox News.
Asked why he believes Biden and Trump don’t want to debate him, Kennedy said the pair don’t want to discuss issues that matter to him, such as the national debt, the government’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic, political polarization and “forever wars.”
These “are issues that neither of them want to talk about,” he said.
This story was originally published May 21, 2024 at 1:30 PM with the headline "Should third-party candidates be in presidential debates? What voters say in new poll."