Introduction

The institution takes many forms in the region: from party leaders’ debates in Canada to crowded fields of first-round candidates in Costa Rica to traditional one-on-one confrontations between presidential contenders in the USA. Debates between candidates seeking the presidency are now mandatory in Mexico and Argentina. In the United States an independent commission, unaffiliated with political parties or the federal government, has overseen general election presidential debates since 1988. A newly formed debate commission successfully produced two-party leaders’ debates in Canada’s 2019 federal elections, replacing the media consortium that had once put together Canadian debates. Debate formats in the countries of North and South America range from the press conference structure first used in the Kennedy–Nixon encounters to town hall debates in which the voters themselves pose questions. Different countries in the Americas have different debate traditions—Canadian party leaders typically debate in both English and French, for example—yet many common denominators are shared across the board.