As Biden and Trump plan to go elsewhere, University of Utah hasn’t yet been told to cancel debate

President’s Circle on the University of Utah campus in Salt Lake City is pictured on Monday, January 15, 2024. (Photo by Spenser Heaps for Utah News Dispatch)

In the hours after former President Donald Trump accepted a challenge from President Joe Biden to meet him on the debate stage, bypassing planned debates organized by the Commission on Presidential Debates, the University of Utah has not yet been told to drop its event from the calendar.

Biden and Trump, the likely nominees for their parties, agreed Wednesday to a CNN-hosted debate in Atlanta on June 27 and a second match up hosted by ABC News on Sept. 10, meaning both debates will come before early voting gets underway. 

The Biden camp had written to the Commission on Presidential Debates saying he would not agree to the organization’s three-debate schedule, which would have wrapped up Oct. 9 in Salt Lake City.

Jason Perry, director of the University of Utah’s Hinckley Institute of Politics, said that while the news is “disappointing,” plans for the debate remain in place.

“We have not been told that we should stand down and cancel the event. There are a lot of things that could still happen,” Perry said.  

Perry said the university is in ongoing talks with the Commission on Presidential Debates, a nonpartisan organization that has been organizing presidential debates since the 1980s.  

“So they are working with the candidates and their campaigns to see what the path forward looks like. I expect there will be a lot of steps between now and even those two debates that have been announced,” Perry said.

In 2020, the University of Utah played host to the vice presidential debate between then-Sen. Kamala Harris and then-Vice President Mike Pence (and a now-famous fly).

Since its creation, the commission has been tasked with laying a neutral arena for debates, and staging them at universities has been positive for civic engagement, Perry said. 

He hopes at least some of that tradition can continue.

“But as you look at the positions of these candidates and campaigns, it’s clear they’re trying to take control over more of that process from where it’s broadcast, to who does the interviews,” Perry said.

Attention may now turn to the timing of the two debates Biden and Trump have agreed to, according to Perry.

“The timing of the debates is going to come under great scrutiny over the coming hours to weeks, because there are certain timelines in the political process from when you have your conventions, when you have someone that is actually the nominee from the party,” Perry said. 

That timing includes “when (ballots) are sent out, early voting, and you try to time these debates at the perfect moment when people get a good view of the potential candidates as they are about to vote,” Perry said. 

The University of Utah had sought $6.5 million from the Legislature to prepare the campus for the event, especially for security and infrastructure needs, which ultimately wasn’t funded.

Whether any 2024 presidential debates would take place at all had been in question since 2022 when the Republican National Committee withdrew from the Commision on Presidential Debates, citing concerns about the fairness of the timing and moderators. 

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