Presidential debates 2016: dates, schedule, and what to expect

The first presidential debate between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump has concluded. You can read the transcript here.

The next debate won't be between the presidential candidates, but their vice presidential running mates — Tim Kaine and Mike Pence. It will take place on Tuesday, October 4, 2016. The next Clinton-Trump debate, meanwhile, won't be until Sunday, October 9, 2016.

For decades now, these debates have been the marquee events of the general election season. They’re often the only time the two major party nominees come face to face, and they tend to draw between 30 million and 70 million viewers. So there’s a whole lot at stake.

When are the debates?

Every remaining debate will run from 9 to 10:30 pm Eastern, and they’ll take place on the following dates:

Tuesday, October 4, 2016: Vice presidential debate in Farmville, Virginia, at Longwood University, moderated by CBS News correspondent Elaine Quijano

Sunday, October 9, 2016: Second presidential debate in St. Louis, Missouri, at Washington University, moderated by ABC News’ Martha Raddatz and CNN’s Anderson Cooper (this debate will be in a "town meeting" format, in which several questions will be posed by undecided voters in the audience)

Wednesday, October 19, 2016: Third presidential debate in Las Vegas, Nevada, at the University of Nevada, moderated by Fox News’ Chris Wallace

That final debate will take place just two weeks and six days before Election Day (Tuesday, November 8).

Do the debates matter?

Political scientists Robert Erikson and Christopher Wlezien have written that according to their research, the debates "clearly do not have major impact to the same degree as party conventions," and they've found that the polls tend to shift by only a few percentage points during the debates season. That could be important in a close race (and this race now looks close!), but a massive change is unlikely.

Now, historically, the debates have sometimes produced big short-term swings in the polls. Mitt Romney, for instance, took the lead over President Obama after what was judged to be a strong first debate in 2012.

Yet often those effects don’t last very long. Sometimes a debate bounce will just fade, or sometimes it will be canceled out by a subsequent debate that helps the other major candidate (as it was for Romney).

And in other years, the person judged to be the "winner" of the debates doesn’t get much of a bounce at all — as in 2004, when polls showed voters thought John Kerry won all three debates but President Bush remained in the lead.

Still, in most of these past debates, the debaters have been relatively ordinary mainstream politicians who are overall well-prepared. Trump could be something very different. Check out a fuller rundown of the political science evidence on the impact of presidential debates here.

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Watch: How presidential debates are won and lost

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