There have already been two Republican debates in the 2016 presidential race, and now it’s time for the first Democratic primetime debate. It’s set to take place on Tuesday evening, and the podium order has been released as well. Unlike the Republican debates, there will be only one as there aren’t nearly as many Democratic candidates. You’ve got to know how to watch though and here is the schedule for TV viewing and streaming live online.
The Las Vegas debate is being hosted by CNN and it’s going to take place on Tuesday, October 13, at 8:30 p.m. EST. Not only will CNN air it live on television, but Fortune revealed that the network will be providing a live-stream on their website homepage and with no password needed at all.
CNN did announce that they want everyone to have the opportunity to watch the debate.
“All users will be able to watch CNN TV online and on their mobile devices without logging in… The CNN live stream will be available on CNN.com’s Home Page and across its mobile platforms.”
This is actually quite huge for CNN as its not that easy to have large scale live streaming from a technical aspect of things. During the first GOP debate, Fox News ended up having all sorts of troubles and that was even with limiting live streaming online access to those with cable passwords.
CNN is extremely confident that they will be able to handle the large volume of viewers even though the first Democratic debate will likely be quite tame as opposed to the massive Republican debates so far.
The podium order was revealed early on Monday as well, and their positions come via the results of polls conducted since August 1. As expected, Hillary Clinton is the highest-polling candidate, and she will have Bernie Sanders on her right.
This is not overly surprising as Bernie Sanders has been gaining on Clinton and lessening her lead for a little over a month now. While Clinton is still being looked at as the favorite in the Democratic Party, he is gaining ground.
Immediately to Clinton’s left will be Martin O’Malley, who is currently running third in the polls. On the outside of Sanders will be Jim Webb, while fifth-placing Lincoln Chafee will fall outside of O’Malley on the other end.
Now, Vice President Joe Biden has not entered the presidential race and it isn’t exactly known if he even will. If he should decide to join the race and take place in the debate though, a podium would be placed on stage for him.
With the positions being known and the candidates ready to take their spots on the stage, the first Democratic presidential debate is ready to take place tonight. CNN has a hold on how it can be watched on television and streaming live online.
Andrew Morse, the head of US editorial operations and worldwide digital at CNN knows this is going to be something they hope is successful and goes off without a hitch.
“We are offering this as a preview. To me, there’s a longer play here, which is that we want our audiences to know this is a service they can get from CNN going forward. We want to build that user behavior.”
The first Democratic presidential debate is going to tell a lot about the candidates and that’s especially true for Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders. CNN will show it live on television and streaming live online for the world to watch for free. Sure, there won’t be any Donald Trump , but it’s incredibly important and will be very telling.
[Images via Getty Images – Win McNamee/Alex Wong/Chip Somodevilla]
