The 2020 U.S. Presidential Election is still more than a year away, yet the Democrats have already hosted their third debate. There were still 10 candidates sharing a single stage, making it difficult for anything monumental to come out of it. Even Beto O’Rourke’s [new policy idea] (https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/12/us/politics/beto-o-rourke-guns-banks.html) on having credit card companies and banks run background checks before processing firearm purchases was announced hours before the debate. More of the trouble likely comes from the time constraints. Candidates only had one minute and 15 seconds to answer a direct question, up from only one minute from the first debates. With little else besides soundbytes for the media to pounce on for hours – or sometimes even days – what is the point of having such a long election cycle?

As the incumbent, it is not surprising that President Trump announced his reelection campaign in February 2017, just after his inauguration. However, John Delaney, a Democrat, announced his election campaign in June 2017, over three years before the 2020 election. Andrew Yang announced his campaign in 2017 as well. By now, most people here at NYU Abu Dhabi can name at least one of the Democratic candidates for U.S. president regardless of where they are from. If anything, this shows how desperate the Democrats are to get Trump out of office.

It is not that the Democrats are not valid in their quest to win the presidency – as that is one of the best ways to further their agenda – however, two years is simply an unnecessary amount of time to get to know candidates. There is nothing learned or gained by having candidates on a stage with only a minute or so to answer questions they have already answered. While petty comebacks are entertaining, they do not enhance a voter’s understanding of the candidates. All the debates do is give Kamala Harris another opportunity to remind voters that Joe Biden is old and has supported racists policies; give Pete Buttigieg another chance to mention that he is a multilingual veteran; and Andrew Yang yet another chance to remind people of his Freedom Dividend policy of giving Americans $1,000 USD per month as a Universal Basic Income. People watching the debates likely already know this information. There have been news reports and press releases about it, as well as interviews and video clips from previous debates. The constant reminders of already known information does not benefit the candidates; the focus needs to shift onto more important matters. There is more to the candidates than these surface level ideas and talking points that the general public may not be inclined to find out about themselves, yet the debates do not give a platform to more specific information.

Maybe the debates are a way to narrow down the field. After all, the first two debates had to be split into two nights with 10 candidates debating each night. The qualifications imposed by the Democratic National Committee are tightening, for the third debate candidates had to meet both polling and fundraising requirements, rather than the less exclusionary polling requirements of the first two debates. Even with that justification, it does not explain why the election cycle started so far in advance. The campaigning could have been within a year or even six months of the 2020 election, not the nearly two years they will have taken. It seems that the anticipation is what is so exciting about it. It is like a domino effect – as soon as one person announces their candidacy, it is a race for people to follow – and the media pounces on it, making decisions about who they are going to give the most coverage to and who the underdogs will be. And this is just on the side of the Democrats.

The Republican party has begun cancelling state caucuses and primaries altogether, with the Republican National Committee pledging “undivided support” to President Trump. This has not stopped people from declaring their candidacies, but without much public support or endorsements, it is difficult for them to gain any media attention. For the states that hold Republican primaries, the first time people will see a name besides Donald Trump is when they get their ballot. Not everyone is OK with this though, as there is a growing number of Republicans that do not support the president’s policies yet do not agree with the policies of the Democratic party. With such a long election cycle, one would think there would be room for everyone to have a say. Arguably the only advantage to having the election cycle last years, especially without any Republican competition, is that the Democrats have time to win over more moderate Republicans. They may find people changing their party affiliations in time for the primaries, especially as the political divide increases within the Republican Party. However, the number of people this influences will likely be negligible.

The third Democratic Debate was nothing to get excited over. At this point, the 2020 election should not be something to invest energy into, with the amount of time between then and now. But, of course, the world will continue to watch as the U.S. devotes hours of media time to Democratic debates and the 2020 Election. Hopefully voters will not be too exhausted from listening to political talk by the time the primaries roll around.