Media

CNN announces four more town halls featuring 2020 Dems

by Joe Concha - 05/20/19 11:19 AM ET

CNN announced Monday that the network will host four more town halls with 2020 presidential contenders in the coming weeks.

Sen. Michael Bennet (D-Colo.) will appear on CNN Thursday, May 30 at 10 p.m. The event will be moderated by chief political correspondent Dana Bash.

{mosads}Reps. Seth Moulton (D-Mass.), Tim Ryan (D-Ohio) and Eric Swalwell (D-Calif.) are also slated to appear Sunday, June 2, in back-to-back town halls beginning at 6 p.m. and lasting one hour each. The moderators for those events will be anchors Victor Blackwell, Poppy Harlow and Jim Sciutto, respectively.

The four town halls will take all take place at CNN headquarters in Atlanta, the network said.

Bennet, Moulton, Ryan and Swalwell are all polling at low numbers in the crowded Democratic primary field, with Bennet and Ryan generating just 0.8 percent support in the RealClearPolitics polling index. Swalwell and Moulton are both polling at zero percent.

Former Rep. Beto O’Rourke (D-Texas) will take part in a CNN town hall this Tuesday. O’Rourke is currently sagging in the polls with just 3.8 percent support in the RealClearPolitics average, placing him more than 34 points behind front-runner former Vice President Joe Biden.

CNN has hosted more than 20 town halls this year.

Sen. Kamala Harris (D-Calif.) drew the biggest audience for the network in a February town hall event, delivering nearly 1.9 million viewers. Ratings have mostly dropped since the Harris town hall, with lower-tier candidates such as Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.) and Washington Gov. Jay Inslee (D) attracting less than 500,000 total viewers for their respective events.