How to Stream the ABC Democratic Debate for Free
Saturday night's presidential primary debate, the second for the Democrats, will be easy to watch. It is scheduled to air beginning at 8 p.m.
ABC will stream the debate live on its website. It will also be broadcast live beginning at 8 p.m. ET (7 p.m. CT, 5 p.m. PT). It is scheduled to run about two hours.
Unlike the crowded Republican debate that took place Tuesday night, Saturday's debate will feature only three candidates: the front-runner, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, and her two challengers, independent Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders and former Maryland Governor Martin O'Malley.
The candidates will gather at St. Anselm College, a Benedictine liberal arts school in Manchester, New Hampshire. Another of the debate's original sponsors, Manchester ABC affiliate WMUR, was dropped by the DNC over a labor dispute.
The debate is likely to be a fiery one, in light of a fresh spat between the Clinton and Sanders campaigns. On Thursday night, The Washington Post reported that the Democratic National Committee had suspended the Sanders campaign's access to shared DNC voter data after finding the Sanders campaign "inappropriately and systematically accessed Clinton campaign data."
The campaigns are not supposed to be able to view data belonging to other campaigns; the DNC chocked up the mistake to a software glitch and said it has instructed the software vendor, NGP VAN, to look into what went wrong. The DNC said in a statement it has ordered the Sanders campaign to delete the data it allegedly gained access to and will re-enable the Sanders campaign's access to the system once it has received "a full accounting of whether or not this information was used and the way in which it was disposed."
The Sanders campaign disputes the DNC's version of events. In a press conference Friday afternoon, Sanders campaign manager Jeff Weaver acknowledged that some of his staffers had gained access to data from another campaign. But, he said, the staffer responsible had been fired and the data had not been "utilized." Weaver called the DNC's decision to cut off his campaign's access to the system an "inappropriate overreaction" and threatened to bring legal action against the DNC if it does not restore access.
In a statement, Weaver added that "the leadership of the Democratic National Committee is now actively attempting to undermine our campaign. This is unacceptable. Individual leaders of the DNC can support Hillary Clinton in any way they want, but they are not going to sabotage our campaign—one of the strongest grassroots campaigns in modern history."
DNC Chairwoman Debbie Wasserman-Schultz shot back. "Unfortunately, the Sanders campaign doesn't have anything other than bluster at the moment they can put out there," she said on CNN.
This is not the first time the Sanders campaign has accused the DNC of giving the Clinton campaign special treatment. The DNC's decision to host debates on weekend evenings has also drawn the ire of the Sanders and O'Malley campaigns. O'Malley told The New York Times that the decision to host the debates in non-prime time slots is a way for the party to "circle the wagons around the inevitable front-runner," meaning Clinton.
