The Democratic National Committee soon will announce the candidates who qualified for the first batch of debates of the 2020 presidential campaign.
According to The New York Times analysis of the 23 contenders, Gov. Steve Bullock of Montana, Representative Seth Moulton of Massachusetts and Mayor Wayne Messam of Miramar, Fla., did not qualify, meaning they won’t be part of the debates on June 26 and 27 in Miami.
The DNC said in order to determine the 10-candidate lineup for each debate it will evenly and randomly divide top-tier candidates across the two nights.
The debates are a chance for the candidates to breakout; however, it won’t be easy because they will have to compete for airtime with nine other people on the stage each night.
The Times reports that Mr. Bullock, who started his campaign on May 14, stated that he isn’t satisfied with his party and the methods used to narrow the field.
Two polls that were released this week gave Bullock a chance to be part of the debates. Meaning if he had 1 percent support in either of those polls, he would have been the 21st candidate to qualify.
Meanwhile, Moulton still needs 1 percent of support in any qualifying poll in order to become the Democratic nominee in April.
Messam also didn’t get the required attention, having reached the 1 percent threshold in only one poll.
The DNC two weeks ago said that the requirements for participation in the fall debates will be tougher. Meaning, for the scheduled mid-September debate, the candidates will need to attract donations from at least 130,000 individuals and register at least 2 percent in four state or national polls from a list of approved surveys, the Times wrote.
More than half of the candidates are short of this condition. Because of this, the candidates that have the lowest score argue that this doesn’t allow them to invest in staff or online advertising.
“We set forth the rules early,” Tom Perez, the party chairman, told The Times this week. “We communicated them clearly to everybody. We got no objections when we communicated the rules of participation.”
The 20 candidates that qualified are: Senator Michael Bennet of Colorado; former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr.; Senator Cory Booker of New Jersey; Mayor Pete Buttigieg of South Bend, Ind.; former housing secretary Julián Castro; Mayor Bill de Blasio of New York; former Representative John Delaney of Maryland; Representative Tulsi Gabbard of Hawaii; Senator Kirsten Gillibrand of New York; Senator Kamala Harris of California; former Gov. John Hickenlooper of Colorado; Gov. Jay Inslee of Washington; Senator Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota; former Representative Beto O’Rourke of Texas; Representative Tim Ryan of Ohio; Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont; Representative Eric Swalwell of California; Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts; the self-help author Marianne Williamson; and the former tech executive Andrew Yang.
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