COLUMBUS – America’s top bellwether state landed the first 2016 presidential debate Wednesday, a Sept. 26 matchup at Wright State University near Dayton.
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This will be the first general election presidential debate held in Ohio since October 1980, when President Jimmy Carter dueled with then-former California Gov. Ronald Reagan in Cleveland. That city hosted a vice presidential debate between Dick Cheney and John Edwards in 2004.
The announcement comes about seven weeks after the state hosted last month’s initial GOP presidential debate, and 10 months before Cleveland hosts the Republican National Convention.
Wright State is not unaccustomed to major political events. It’s where GOP presidential candidate John McCain announced Sarah Palin as his running mate in August 2008. Then-Sen. Barack Obama held a “Keeping America’s Promise” rally there in late February of the same year.
The university was among 16 potential hosts that met the April 1 application deadline with the Commission on Presidential Debates. No one else from Ohio applied. The nonprofit commission was founded in 1987 by the Democratic and Republican parties to govern the presidential debate process.