The first Presidential Debate between Democrat Hillary Clinton and Republican Donald Trump takes place at Hofstra, Long Island’s largest private university.
WSHU’s Senior Reporter Ebong Udoma has been looking into how Hofstra became the host of the first debate. He sat down with Morning Edition Host Tom Kuser to discuss what he learned. Below is a transcript of their conversation.
Ebong, how did this happen?
Tom, it’s because Wright State University in Ohio had originally been chosen by the Commission on Presidential Debates to host the event. But the school pulled out after its president said Wright couldn’t afford the estimated $10 million cost and added security required.
So Hofstra can afford that?
I spoke with Melissa Connolly, the head of university relations at Hofstra. She wouldn’t say how much the university is spending on the event, although she did say the last time Hofstra hosted a presidential debate four years ago it cost them about $4 million.
Connolly tells me putting on a debate is worth the cost because Hofstra has had a focus on the modern American presidency since 1982 when they established the Peter S. Kalikow Center for the Study of the American Presidency.
Connolly: We got a center for Presidential Studies, we got a great school of communication and we thought we had the necessary academic strengths that hosting a debate would really add to the experience of our students and our community.
To that end, Hofstra is only one of two schools to have hosted consecutive presidential debates. And the first to host three in a row, in 2008, 2012, and now 2016.
Is there any significance to repeatedly having a presidential debate in New York, a state that has not been a swing state in presidential elections for years?
Tom, that’s a good question. I spoke with Larry Levy the dean of the National Center for Suburban Studies at Hofstra. He believes that the fact that the debate is at Hofstra, a suburban university, makes sense. He says that’s because the suburban vote plays a critical role in presidential elections. Here’s a bit of the conversation I had with Levy.
Levy: It will be the decisive voting bloc. There’s a bunch of reasons for it. You have conservatives and liberals in the suburbs, but you have a real preponderance of moderates and independents who go back and forth between parties. It’s one of the reasons why the suburbs with 55 percent of the population don’t have a proportional vote in Congress because they are always kicking their Congress members out. Nobody ever builds up enough seniority.
Can you give us an example for instance on Long Island. How have voters in Long Island voted in the past few cycles?
Levy: In 2008, Long Island went for Barack Obama. He won the Black communities and the Latino communities with enormous percentages and volumes of voters. He won some of the white communities but lost others. And over all again with a surge of minority voters he was able to capture Long Island. In 2012, the Republican candidate won on Long Island by just a little bit. And it was primarily because of support Obama lost among white voters. The turnout among minorities and young people was strong, but not enough for voters he lost when approval ratings had sunk pretty much all over the country. But not enough to sink his presidency.
Trump has been directing a lot of his speeches to the white working class. Does that resonate on Long Island?
Levy: Well, it resonates in some places on Long Island, and it does not resonate on others. Suffolk County is a much more hospitable place for Trump. The Suffolk County Republican leader, John Jay LaValle, went all in for Trump leading up to the New York primary. And so did the Nassau Republican leader, Joe Mondello. It looks like it’s going to be a good bet for LaValle in Suffolk. It seems Lee Zeldin, the Republican Congress member is leading there, and Trump is leading in Suffolk according to some polls I was allowed to see. In Nassau, not so much. For Tom Suozzi, the Democrat running to replace Steve Israel in Nassau’s North Shore, actually it includes parts of Queens and Suffolk as well, Trump is probably in negatives. That’s because it’s a little richer, a little more Democratic, little more progressive, income levels are higher and there’s more of an attachment to the sophistication of the city. It’s again more fertile ground for Hillary Clinton.
Wow that’s quite an interesting analysis.
It is. And we’ll have to wait till November to see how it plays out.
Thanks, Ebong.
Thanks, Tom.
