Majority of Americans Say It's Important They Hear Directly From Biden, Trump Campaigns

A growing majority of Americans say it's either somewhat important or very important to hear directly from both former Vice President Joe Biden and President Donald Trump's campaigns.

A combined fifty-eight percent of registered voters surveyed by the Pew Research Center said it's important for them to personally receive messages from either the Trump or Biden campaigns heading into the upcoming November 3 general election. This percentage increased about 10 percentage points between April and June and comes amid suggestions from many Democratic Party strategists who say Biden should avoid debating Trump.

The first presidential debate is set to take place September 29 at Case Western Reserve University and the Cleveland Clinic in Ohio.

As Newsweek reported Saturday, former White House Press Secretary Joe Lockhart and several other Democratic strategists urged Biden, "whatever you do, don't debate Trump." The Biden supporters, and some conservative critics of Trump, made the argument that Trump simply shouldn't be given a national platform they believe he will use to spout lies.

"We saw in the debates in 2016 Hillary Clinton showed a mastery of the issues, every point she made was more honest and bested Trump," Lockhart told CNN Saturday. "But Trump came out of the debates doing better I think because he just kept repeating the same old lies: 'we're going to build a wall and Mexico is going to pay for it,' 'we're going to keep all those Mexican rapists out of the country,' and 'we're going to make great trade deals'—none of these things have come to pass."

According to the Pew survey, conducted as part of its American News Pathways project, about 17 percent of voters said it's "not at all important" for them to receive any information from the campaigns, indicating they have made up their minds already in terms of voting.

Black, Hispanic and older voters were groups who said it was especially important that they receive messages and information directly from the Trump and Biden presidential campaigns. About four-in-ten Black voters and people over the age of 65 said it is "very important" that they hear directly from the campaigns in order to lock in their support.

A majority of white voters, 55 percent, also said it's either somewhat important or very important for them to have direct information coming in from either the Biden or Trump campaigns. As Pew noted, interest in hearing messages from the campaigns went up in every racial, ethnic and age group analyzed in the survey. However, voters are still paying more attention to news about COVID-19 than they are about the upcoming presidential election.

Newsweek reached out to both the Trump and Biden campaigns for reaction or any additional remarks but did not hear back before publication.