When was the first televised presidential debate? Who were the candidates?

Asking the question to the older generation in the States of ‘which was the first ever Presidential debate?’ will almost certainly be answered with Kennedy vs Nixon in 1960.

However, that is not the case. There was indeed another debate that took place live on our screens before that, four years earlier.

The true story behind the first ever televised presidential debate

Democratic candidate Adlai Stevenson challenged incumbent Republican president Dwight Eisenhower to a debate and it was decided that the two would go head-to-head in a battle of the speakers. There’s your answer.

OK, now I have to be honest: neither of the two candidates actually appeared on screen, with surrogates standing in for them at the time of the debate.

What’s more, the show, which took place on November 4, 1956, featured two women in the place of the President and his challenger: former First Lady and party icon Eleanor Roosevelt stood for the Democrats and senior senator from Maine, Margaret Chase Smith was the Republican representative. Margaret Chase Smith and Eleanor Roosevelt had known each other for two decades. “I respected and admired Mrs. Roosevelt for her intelligence and active leadership”, Smith wrote in her autobiography.

Roosevelt was key in Stevenson’s nomination and was, according to the Senate website, his “strongest advocate”. As for Smith, she was a mature politician and everyone’s choice for the other side of the debate.

Who won the debate?

It is generally agreed upon that once the debate concluded, the reaction was mixed. However, one thing was clear: Margaret Chase Smith was certainly in the ascendancy and knew her way around a public speaking event.

In the 1954 elections, the democratic gains were minimal but enough for Eisenhower to win back control of both chambers.

Let’s not leave without mentioning the Kennedy - Nixon debates. Technically not the first ever televised Presidential debate but the first ever Presidential debate with both candidates present, they took place in 1960.

Full screen

Although debates would not become commonplace between Presidents and candidates until after 1976, the show played out on screens was indeed one for the history books. Between September 26 and October 21, the two went blow for blow with sixty to seventy million viewers watching the first and successive shows, which came to be known as “the Great Debates.”

Purdue University took a deep dive on the debates, and came out with some interesting conclusions. They spoke about the debates having an impact on both arguing policy as well as the public personas of both people: “the hope of attracting more potential voters and increasing education of the issues was overcome by the interest of politicians catering to public image and using media exposure to build credibility and create more personality” while adding that “one of the most discussed issues with the 1960 debates was the notion that people who listened to the radio were more likely to vote for Nixon while people who watched the debates on television were more likely to vote for Kennedy”.