The GOP debate starts way too late at night
Timothy P. Carney
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Donald Trump won’t be the only Republican skipping tonight’s presidential debate. A huge portion of likely Republican primary voters will miss it, too, thanks to it starting at the ungodly late hour of 9 p.m. Eastern.
This is billed as a two-hour debate, which means it won’t end until 11 p.m. That’s way too late. Sure, lots of people like to stay up that late anyway, but sensible adults with either jobs, kids, or both are apt to call it a day a lot earlier than that.
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Millions of American children are already in school this week, which means millions of American parents need to be up around 6 a.m. in order to have some coffee in their systems before rousing the children from bed.
Republican primary voters are more likely to be parents of young children, by the way — and those are on the young end of the GOP primary electorate.
Nearly 40% of the Republican primary electorate is over 65, and a vast majority is middle-aged or older, according to a recent NBC News poll. Many of these folks will have finished dinner by 6 p.m., and now Fox and the GOP are asking them to stay up another five hours?
The debate should start at 7 p.m.
Here is where some people pipe up with, “What about the West Coast?!” Okay. What about it? Are we worried a 4 p.m. Pacific debate will interfere with 4:20 in Portland?
Is it really more disruptive to a day to have the debate start at 4 p.m. for a small slice of the population than it is to have it end at 11 p.m. for a much larger slice? For one thing, there’s nothing keeping Orange County Republicans from watching the debate on a couple of hours of delay on the Internet. Heck, some California media website could even create a special package with commentary, et cetera, that airs the whole debate at 7 p.m. for West Coasters.
This isn’t live sports. We’re not worried about spoilers here.
Also, a GOP primary debate shouldn’t be geared towards West Coasters. Republicans are not concentrated in the Pacific time zone. California, Oregon, Washington, Alaska, and Hawaii typically play approximately zero role in choosing the GOP nominee. Nevada is the only Pacific Time Zone state that is likely to play a significant role in the nominating process.
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A vast majority of Republican primary voters live in the Eastern or Central time zone. A full 75% of delegates to the Republican National Convention in 2024 are from states that are entirely or mostly in the Eastern or Central time zones, and most of those are in the Eastern time zone.
I’ll stay up to the end of this debate because it’s literally my job. But I won’t like it.