Getty A welcome banner hangs on the side of the Sheila and Eric Samson Pavilion on the Cleveland Clinic Main Campus on September 27, 2020, in Cleveland Ohio, where the first Biden vs Trump debate will be held.
Editor’s Note: The information below is from the first presidential debate. The second presidential debate will begin at 9 p.m. Eastern time, 8 p.m. Central time, 7 p.m. Mountain time, 6 p.m. Pacific time, at 3 p.m. in Hawaii and at 5 p.m. in Alaska. You can read more about the second debate and final presidential debate here.
Tonight is the first presidential debate for the 2020 election, as President Donald Trump and former Vice President Joe Biden face off. Read on below for more details on exactly when you can tune in tonight on Tuesday, September 29, and not miss a thing.
The Debate Starts at 9 PM Eastern
Tonight’s debate begins at 9 p.m. Eastern time. But what does that translate to in other time zones? The debate will be simulcast live wherever you’re living here in the United States, so you won’t be behind anyone else even if you live in a different time zone. Of course, not all local channels may air the debate, but you can find it on channels like Fox and CNN.
This means that the debate will begin at:
- 8 p.m. Central time
- 7 p.m. Mountain time
- 6 p.m. Pacific time
- 3 p.m. Hawaii time
- 5 p.m. in Juneau, Alaska
If you want to see what time it starts in a specific city, you can check out the TimeAndDate listings here. Here are a few examples below of the time the debate starts in different cities in the U.S.
- Anchorage: 5 p.m.
- Boston: 9 p.m.
- Denver: 7 p.m.
- Detroit: 9 p.m.
- Honolulu: 3 p.m.
- Houston: 8 p.m.
- Los Angeles: 6 p.m.
- Miami: 9 p.m.
- Philadelphia: 9 p.m.
- Washington, D.C.: 9 p.m.
Tonight’s debate will last 90 minutes and end at 10:30 p.m. Eastern. You can watch it live in the stream below. There will be no commercial breaks tonight.
What to Expect Tonight & in the Coming Weeks
Fox News Sunday anchor Chris Wallace is moderating tonight’s debate. According to The Commission on Presidential Debates, the topics for tonight’s debate will include:
- The records of Trump and Biden
- The Supreme Court
- COVID-19
- The economy
- “Race and violence in our cities”
- “The integrity of the election.”
The debate is co-hosted by Case Western Reserve University and Cleveland Clinic. It’s being held at the Health Education Campus at Case Western University in Cleveland, Ohio. It’s taking place in the Health Education Campus’s Sheila and Eric Samson Pavilion.
After tonight, the vice presidential debate is next on Wednesday, October 7 at the University of Utah in Salt Lake City. The moderator for this debate will be Susan Page of USA Today.
Then on Thursday, October 15 is the second presidential debate at the Adrienne Arsht Center for the Performing Arts of Miami-Dade County. The moderator for this debate will be Steve Scully of C-SPAN. This debate will be in a town hall type format.
The third presidential debate is scheduled for Thursday, October 22 at Belmont University in Nashville, Tennessee. The moderator for this debate will be Kristen Welker of NBC.
Expect tonight’s debate to be fascinating, to say the least. Biden and Trump have not faced off against each other before, so it’s tough to know what to expect. We just saw Biden in a series of Democratic debates, but we haven’t seen Trump in a debate since he and Hillary Clinton faced off in 2016.
Tonight’s debate will be in six 15-minute segments, according to the Commission on Presidential Debates. Candidates will have two minutes to answer the opening question and they will be able to respond to each other too, NPR reported.
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