Hillary Clinton claps at the “Hillary Clinton: She’s With Us” concert on June 6. (Getty)
Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump have debated already, just not on the same stage. They will not be seen together on the same stage until September in the first presidential debate.
The first will be held on Monday, September 26, beginning at 9 p.m. ET. It will be televised on all major broadcast networks plus CNN, CSPAN and Fox — as will all the subsequent presidential and vice-presidential debates.
The first debate was originally going to be hosted by Wright State University in Dayton, Ohio. The state is the ultimate battleground during the general election, as no Republican has won the presidential election without winning Ohio. President Barack Obama won the state in both of his elections. However, Wright State President David R. Hopkins announced that the debate will no longer be held there due to budgetary concerns. Instead, Hofstra University in Hempstead, New York will host the first debate.
The moderator for the first debate will be NBC Nightly News anchor Lester Holt. On September 16, the commission on Presidential Debates announced that it has only invited Trump and Clinton. Based on an average of three polls, third-party candidates Jill Stein and Gary Johnson did not make the cut.
The second debate is set for Sunday, October 9, at Washington University in St. Louis. Martha Raddatz, ABC News’ chief global affairs correspondent and This Week co-anchor, will moderate with CNN’s Anderson Cooper.
The third debate is scheduled for Wednesday, October 19, at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. Fox News Sunday anchor Chris Wallace will moderate.
In order for the third party candidates to participate in the three debates, they need to crack 15 percent in certain national general election polls, USA Today reports.
A vice-presidential debate is set for Tuesday, October 4, at Longwood University in Farmville, Virginia. CBSN anchor and CBS NEws correspondent Elaine Quijano will be the moderator.
In an interview with ABC News on June 7, Clinton said she is “so looking forward” to debating Trump. “I think it would be a singular moment in American history, because I think I’ll have chance to make clear why I believe why he is not qualified and temperamentally unfit to be president,” she said.
As for Trump, he told CNBC in May that he’d like to debate Clinton more than just three times. There were only three debates between Obama and Mitt Romney in 2012.
Trump also mentioned that he would have been interested in debating Clinton’s rival, Bernie Sanders, but that never panned out.
