Democratic Presidential Candidates Agree to Expanded Debate Schedule

Politics

Hillary Clinton, Bernie Sanders and Martin O’Malley have agreed to attend four more debates during the Democratic primary—if approved by the Democratic National Committee. According to Buzzfeed, once the DNC sanctions the additional events, locations and dates would be arranged.

Clinton’s campaign is calling for one debate to be held in Flint, Michigan to focus on the ongoing water supply crisis. “We’ve agreed to an additional debate in NH and are currently in discussions to agree to additional debates—we think one of them should be in Flint,” Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta said in a statement. “We should use the spotlight of the presidential campaign to keep the focus on Flint, and to lift up the historic underlying issues that Flint and too many other predominantly low income communities of color across America are struggling with every day.”

Both campaigns for Sanders and O’Malley have criticized the debate schedule, which put some of the events on weekends when viewership is limited.

Earlier this month, DNC Chairperson Debbie Wasserman Schultz told Lenny the limited schedule is an effort to prevent “an explosion of debates like we had in 2008, where you had 26 debates, which everyone agreed was too many.”


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Image via Getty.

 
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