Part of the 2016 U.S. presidential election
The 2016 United States presidential debates were a series of debates held during the 2016 presidential election. 
The Commission on Presidential Debates (CPD), a bipartisan organization formed in 1987, organized four debates among the major party candidates, sponsored three presidential debates and one vice presidential debate. Only Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton and Republican nominee Donald Trump met the criteria for inclusion in the debates, and thus were the only two to appear in the debates sponsored by the Commission on Presidential Debates. The CPD-sponsored vice presidential debate took place between their respective vice presidential running mates, Tim Kaine and Mike Pence.
The first presidential debates took place on September 26, 2016, and set the record as the most-watched debate in American history, with 84 million viewers. The second presidential debate took place on October 9, 2016. The third and final presidential debate took place on October 19, 2016. Additionally, a vice presidential debate took place on October 4, 2016.
Commission on Presidential Debates-sponsored debates.
The Commission on Presidential Debates stipulates three criteria for eligibility for the presidential debates: constitutional eligibility to serve as president, appearance on enough ballots to potentially reach 270 electoral votes, and an average at least 15% on five selected national polls. For the vice-presidential debate, the running mates of the presidential candidates qualifying for the first presidential debate will be invited. By mid-September Hillary Clinton, Donald Trump, Gary Johnson, and Jill Stein were on enough ballots to reach 270 electoral votes; however, only Clinton and Trump had reached the 15% polling threshold. As of  2016,[ [update]] Johnson and Stein had polled as high as 13% and 7%, respectively, and had an average of 8.3% and 3%, respectively.
On August 15, the CPD announced that it would use the most recent CBS/"The New York Times", Fox News, CNN/Opinion Research Corporation, NBC/"The Wall Street Journal", and ABC/"The Washington Post" polls for the debate criteria and that candidates must be at an average of 15% in these polls.
On September 16, the commission announced the official invitation of both Clinton and Trump to participate in the first debate to be held on September 26 at Hofstra University, but Johnson and Stein did not meet the established criteria, and would not be participants in the debate. The commission also confirmed that Clinton and Trump had committed to participate. It was also announced that Mike Pence and Tim Kaine would be participating in the only scheduled vice presidential debate, to take place at Longwood University on October 4. The 15% threshold was reapplied with polling numbers following the first debate in order to judge the participants in the second debate on October 9.
Moderators for the four debates were announced September 2, 2016.
Topics addressed and not addressed.
Over the combined six hours of debate time at the three presidential debates and one vice presidential debate, the issues most raised in moderators' questions were the Syrian civil war (six questions) and terrorism (four questions). U.S.-Russia relations, immigration, job creation, Trump's taxes, and Trump's lewd leaked recording controversy were each asked about in three questions, and Clinton's emails, the Supreme Court, Social Security, taxation of the wealthy, the national debt, Iraq, the Affordable Care Act, "uniting the country," nuclear weapons, and the legitimacy of the election, were each the subject of two questions. A number of issues were the subject of a single question, including expectations of police conduct, race relations, abortion, gun policy, "birtherism," jobs in the energy industry, cyberterrorism, Islamophobia, the Clinton Foundation, the Donald J. Trump Foundation, the strengths of the candidates' opponents, the skills of the vice presidential nominees, the candidate's faith, the low favorability ratings of both candidates, the paid speeches given by Clinton, Trump's Twitter posts, Clinton's "basket of deplorables" remark, Clinton's "look," and the candidates' behavior.
The debate moderators failed to ask a question about climate change at any of the three debates, although Clinton did touch on the issue twice as part of responses to other questions. The moderators' failure to address the issue prompted complaints by commentators. David Leonhardt of "The New York Times" termed it "a failure of journalism" and a "a grievous error." Prominent climate scientists Kerry Emanuel and Michael E. Mann, as well as activist group 350.org, criticized the failure of the debates to address the issue.
A number of other issues were either addressed sparingly or not at all:
Speaking time.
Speaking time at the debates was as follows:
Overall, Clinton spoke for 107 seconds longer than Trump.
Polling.
The following polls were conducted prior to each of the respective debates, and determined the candidates who participated in each debate.
Candidates in green participated in the debate, while those in red were excluded. "Italics" denotes the leading candidate in the respective poll.
First presidential debate.
The following polls were the most recent conducted prior to September 16, 2016, the polling deadline for both the first presidential debate and only vice presidential debate:
Second presidential debate.
The following polls were the most recent conducted prior to October 4, 2016, the polling deadline for the second presidential debate:
Third presidential debate.
The following polls were the most recent conducted prior to October 14, 2016, the polling deadline for the third presidential debate:
Debate list.
All presidential debates (including the vice presidential debate) ran from 9:00 p.m. to 10:30 p.m. EDT.
September 26: First presidential debate (Hofstra University).
The first presidential debate between former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Businessman Donald Trump, took place on Monday, September 26, 2016, at Hofstra University in Hempstead, New York. The debate was moderated by Lester Holt of NBC. It was originally scheduled to take place at Wright State University, but the venue was changed due to security and financial concerns.
Format.
The first presidential debate was divided into six segments, each of approximately 15 minutes in length, with the moderator introducing a topic and giving each candidate two minutes, followed by approximately 8 minutes and 45 seconds of facilitated discussion between the two candidates, with both candidates receiving approximately equal time. The questions discussed during the 90 minutes were at the sole discretion of the moderator, and were not shared beforehand with the commission or with either campaign. Each candidate spoke in front of a podium. Besides applause at the beginning and end of the debate, there was no audience participation allowed, but sporadic applause occurred at various points throughout the 90 minutes.
The segments were on the economy and job creation, trade, the federal deficit, race relations and policing, the war on terror, the foreign policy of the United States, and each candidate's experience in the political and business realm.
Reception.
Writing on September 28, "FiveThirtyEight" found that every scientific poll to that point had suggested that voters thought Hillary Clinton performed better than Donald Trump in the debate. A CNN/ORC poll of debate viewers found that 62% believed Clinton won, compared to 27% for Trump. A poll conducted by Public Policy Polling found that 51% thought Clinton won the debate, while 40% thought Trump won. A YouGov poll found that 57% of Americans declared Clinton the winner, while 30% declared Trump the winner. A "Politico"/Morning Consult poll showed that 49% of likely voters thought that Clinton won the debate, while 26% thought that Trump won, and 25% were undecided. Echelon Insights polling showed that Clinton won the debate 48–22, and that the debate made 41% of respondents more likely to vote for Clinton while 29% were more likely to vote for Trump. A Reuters/Ipsos poll found that 56% of Americans thought Clinton did better, while 26% thought Trump did. An NBC News/SurveyMonkey poll shows that 52% of likely voters who followed the debate chose Clinton was the winner, 21% chose Trump, and 26% did not choose either candidate. A Gallup poll showed that more respondents thought Clinton did a better job than Trump by a margin of 61% to 27%. A Fox News poll shows that 61% of respondents thought that Clinton won the debate while 21% said Trump did. An ABC News/"The Washington Post" poll shows that 53% of respondents thought that Clinton won the debate while 18% said Trump did. A CBS News poll shows that 32% of likely voters say that they thought better of Clinton after watching the debate, but only 10% of voters said that they thought better of Trump afterward.
A panel of "Los Angeles Times" analysts consisting of Doyle McManus and two others found that Clinton won all six of the debate segments. Among swing-state party officials and strategists surveyed by "Politico", 79% agreed that Trump did not win the debate.
Moderation.
The performance of Lester Holt as moderator of the debate received mixed reactions, with political critics stating that Holt struggled to keep control of the debate, and although he challenged both candidates, Holt's repeated attempts to get the candidates to adhere to the time restrictions were ignored.
Michael M. Grynbaum of "The New York Times" described Holt's performance by stating "He was silent for minutes at a time, allowing Hillary Clinton and Donald J. Trump to joust and bicker between themselves—and sometimes talk right over him—prompting some viewers to wonder if Mr. Holt had left the building." He continued, "Being less conspicuous often means attracting less criticism, and Mr. Holt's conservative approach seemed designed to avoid the opprobrium that befell his NBC colleague, Matt Lauer, whose performance at a forum this month was widely panned after he repeatedly interrupted Mrs. Clinton and failed to challenge Mr. Trump." Hadas Gold of "Politico" wrote "Lester Holt was on an island on Monday night. And for most of the first presidential debate, he stayed there, letting the battleships of Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump shoot their missiles at one another. It made for some memorable exchanges between Trump and Clinton, matched in close-up on most networks. For some debate watchers, that's what they want their moderators to do: say 'go' and let them run. But it also left some gaps where viewers probably expected sharp questions."
Viewership.
The debate set the record as the most-watched debate in television history, with 84 million viewers across the 13 channels that carried it live and were counted by Nielsen, surpassing the previous record of 80.6 million viewers set by the between Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan in 1980. These numbers do not account for the millions of viewers who watched the debates online and the people who watched the debate at parties, bars, restaurants, and offices. Two million concurrent viewers watched it live on YouTube, while there were 8 million views on Facebook (whose numbers do not break down into unique viewers); in addition, 1.4 million unique viewers watched it live on CBS's streaming service. All debate-related video on YouTube exceeded 88 million views on October 3, 2016. CNN Digital reported 2.4 million live streams, and Yahoo News reported 5 million views, both live and on-demand.
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October 4: Vice presidential debate (Longwood University).
The only vice presidential debate between Senator Tim Kaine and Governor Mike Pence took place on Tuesday, October 4, 2016, at Longwood University in Farmville, Virginia. The debate was moderated by Elaine Quijano of CBS.
Format.
The candidates were seated at a table with Quijano. The debate consisted of nine segments, each 10 minutes in length. Both candidates were given two minutes to respond to questions, with the remaining time used for a deeper discussion of the topic. Quijano asked questions about Donald Trump's temperament, the economy, Social Security, police and race relations, nuclear weapons, abortion and religious faith.
Reception.
A CNN instant-poll found that 48% of viewers believed Pence had won while 42% thought Kaine won. Pence was criticized after the debate for not defending Donald Trump's comments, while Kaine was criticized for being too aggressive and interrupting.
Two hours before the debate took place, the website of the Republican National Committee declared Pence the clear winner, writing "During the debate we helped fact check and monitor the conversation in real time [Tag]." The post went on to say that his strong points concerned the economy and Clinton's alleged "scandals". The post was removed prior to the start of the debate, but not before getting widespread press and social media attention.
Rachel Maddow of MSNBC said that the debate was occasionally "incomprehensible" due to the number of times that the candidates interrupted each other. According to ABC News, Kaine interrupted seventy times throughout the debate.
Moderation.
Elaine Quijano moderated and thereby became the first Asian American to moderate a U.S. debate