Democratic presidential candidates debated each other on Saturday, November 14. According to this story, only 8,500,000 people watched. By contrast, the first two Republican debates had 20,000,000 viewers, and the third and fourth Republican debates had 13,000,000 viewers.
This suggests that debates get more viewers when more candidates participate. All of the mainstream Republican debates have had either ten or eight candidates, whereas the most recent Democratic debate had only three.
On November 13 and 14, the Florida Republican Party held a fund-raising event in Orlando. Earlier the party had passed rules saying only presidential candidates who appeared could be on the presidential primary ballot automatically. Those who did not appear had to pay a filing fee of $25,000, or else obtain signatures of 125 registered Republicans from each U.S. House district.
Fourteen Republican presidential candidates attended and will now be on the March 15, 2016 presidential primary ballot. No one has paid the filing fee or gathered the signatures.
Seven Republicans spoke on Friday, November 13, in this order: Marco Rubio, Ted Cruz, Lindsey Graham, Mike Huckabee, Jeb Bush, Donald Trump, and Ben Carson.
Another seven Republicans spoke on Saturday, November 14, in this order: Rick Santorum, Jim Gilmore, Bobby Jindal, Rand Paul, Chris Christie, John Kasich, and Carly Fiorina. Because the Paris attacks had occurred between the Friday session and the Saturday session, the Saturday speakers had an opportunity to address the Paris events.
Ben Carson had been the last presidential candidate to accept the invitation to attend the Sunshine Summit. He didn’t announce that he would attend until November 4.
The Florida Republican presidential primary is winner-take-all. Whoever gets the most votes on March 15 gets all the delegates. Never before has any Florida Republican presidential primary had more than nine candidates listed. However, it is unlikely that anyone will claim the Republican voters will be “confused” by using a ballot with 14 names.
Lee E. Goodman, one of the six Federal Election Commissioners, has this op-ed in support of a proposed FEC rule change that would relax campaign finance restrictions on state political parties. The op-ed says the Commission will be voting on his suggestions this coming week. Goodman is one of the three Republican commissioners.
There are two lawsuits pending aiming to expand who can be invited into the general election presidential debates. The one that was filed first is Level the Playing Field v Federal Election Commission, 1:15cv-1397. On November 9, the FEC answered the Complaint. On November 23, both sides will let the judge know their ideas for a briefing schedule.
Jill Stein, campaigning for the Green Party presidential nomination, was in North Carolina on the weekend of November 14-15. She held a press conference in Asheville to point out that North Carolina requires more support to get a new party on the ballot than any other state. That resulted in this article in Asheville’s daily newspaper, the Citizen-Times.
