Women candidates, moderators, issues bring clout, diversity to debates

The kickoff of the presidential debate season in Miami on Wednesday marks a giant leap for womankind in the campaign arena. 

Not only are there more women in the presidential race than ever before, but the Democratic National Committee has made an unprecedented requirement that there be women moderators at all 12 DNC sanctioned 2020 debates.

"The DNC is committed to an inclusive and fair debate process," DNC senior adviser Mary Beth Cahill told Refinery29 in May. "That means that all 12 DNC-sanctioned debates will feature a diverse group of moderators and panelists including women and people of color, ensuring that the conversations reflect the concerns of all Americans."

The announcement followed research showing that of the 132 debates conducted between 1996 and 2016 recently analyzed by women’s rights organization Time’s Up, 58 included no female moderators. Only 11 debates included a black woman moderator and a mere 8 had a Latina moderator, according to the research. Slightly more than half of the U.S. voter base are women.  

Coming off the unprecedented number of women elected in the November 2018 midterm elections and now running for president, the lack of diversity among moderators would be even more obvious, said Debbie Walsh, director of center for American Women and Politics at Rutgers university.

"It makes it even more noticeable if all the questioners are white men," said Walsh. "When you have diversity among candidates it puts spotlight on lack of diversity among the people asking the questions."

Of the five moderators of the NBC prime time debates on Wednesday and Thursday, two are women: Rachel Maddow, host of "The Rachel Maddow Show," and Savannah Guthrie, NBC “Today” anchor and chief legal analyst.

Lester Holt, of the NBC Nightly News, Chuck Todd, “Meet the Press” anchor and NBC News political director and José Díaz-Balart, anchor of "Noticias Telemundo" and “NBC Nightly News Saturday," will also moderate the two-hour, back-to-back prime events hosted by NBC at the Adrienne Arsht Center in Miami.

Debate producers and moderators have sweeping authority to decide which issues will be raised during debates. That means candidates can be asked questions about issues they may not prioritize but are especially important to other voting blocks, such as women and minorities.

Analysis by the nonprofit research consortium The Women’s Debate reveals questions on issues especially important to women are rarely asked. The group analyzed 700 questions — excluding those about abortion and defunding Planned Parenthood — asked during 21 debates in the 2016 primary cycle. Of those, only six questions were asked about issues that disparately affect women. All six were asked by women moderators.

"It’s important that women are framing questions to candidates and do that through their own lens of their priorities and experiences that may be different than men," said Walsh. "Hopefully this will be a trend we will see on both sides of the aisle."

Terrie Rizzo, head of the Florida Democratic Party, applauded the DNC's debate requirement, adding that media outlets, whose journalists are often moderators, take a look at their role in diversity in debates.   

"Representation and diversity in journalism are essential for media to provide fair and accurate reporting," Rizzo said in an email statement. "But the bigger question isn't if the Florida Democratic Party will make the same requirement — we are committed to having more diversity in journalism — the bigger question is why have women had so little representation as past presidential debate moderators and what are media companies doing to address it?"

The questions that will be asked in Miami are not known. But with women's issues having taken center state since October 2016, when a video surfaced of then-candidate Donald Trump having a lewd conversation with an Access Hollywood television host, there is no shortage of topics.

In an opinion piece in the Washington Post on June 21, actress and activist Eva Longoria, Republican strategist Ana Navarro and Hillary Rosen a Democratic strategist and a co-founder of the Time’s Up Legal Defense Fund suggested six questions:

• 1. Do you think we’ve gone far enough to address sexual harassment in this country? What have you done and what will you do to ensure that work is safe, fair and dignified for all women, no matter their identity or the industry or position in which they work? • 2. Women still face inequities in both opportunities and outcomes in the workplace. What is your plan to work to close the pay gaps for women, in particular for women of color? • 3. Do you believe that the United States should have mandatory paid family and medical leave? If so, what should that leave look like, to whom should it be available and what is your proposal to implement it?

• 4. As president, what policies would you implement to improve working conditions for low-wage employees, such as fast-food workers, hourly retail workers and domestic workers, who are disproportionately women and specifically women of color? • 5. Women make up only 18 percent of boards of directors of public companies in the United States. California recently passed a law to require such boards to have at least one woman. Do you support federal legislation that would require boards to have equal representation? • 6. Studies show that access to child care is still a major barrier to the success of working women. How will you assure that families who need it have access to safe, affordable child care?

The debates will air across NBC, MSNBC and Telemundo from 9 to 11 p.m. Wednesday and Thursday and can also be live-streamed on the NBC News and Telemundo apps, in addition to NBCNews.com, MSNBC.com and Telemundo.com.