Utah Debate Commission releases general election debate schedule

(KUTV) — The Utah Debate Commission (UTDC) released its general election debate schedule on Wednesday.

The scheduled debates was formalized after invitations to all candidates who met the threshold for participation. That threshold – set by the UTDC Board of Directors – was 10%. However, with the margin of error of 4.38%, candidates who achieved 5.62% in the poll in their race qualified for an invitation, UTDC stated in a press release.

The sample for each congressional district included 500 voters, drawn randomly from the voter registration list obtained from the Utah Lt. Governor’s Office in August.

The UTDC debate qualification rules were set when the commission was established in 2013. A press release stated:

The commission seeks to balance the needs of allowing a meaningful discussion of the issues with that of the time constraints of a televised broadcast.

In seeking to balance these competing goals, the UTDC followed the precedent set by the Commission on Presidential Debates (CPD), which uses poll results to establish a minimum support threshold for participation.

The CPD sets a threshold of 15% for candidates to qualify for presidential debates. The UTDC has adopted a lower threshold of 10%, minus the margin of error for the poll.

The poll numbers listed below should not be misinterpreted as predictions of the outcome of any race.

Lighthouse Research, a Salt Lake City polling firm, conducted the survey August 31 to September 12, 2020.

Members of the UTDC polling committee include:

Jay DeSart, Utah Valley University;
David Magleby, Brigham Young University;
Kendall Stilles, Brigham Young University;
Robert Ross, Utah State University.

The results are:

If the election for the US House of Representatives was held today, which of the following candidates would you vote for in the 1st congressional district?