7 contenders at UCLA, co-hosted by PBS Newshour and Politico.com
The sixth Democratic primary debate, with seven candidates, was held at Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles; moderated by Judy Woodruff from CNN; Tim Alberta from Politico Magazine; Yamiche Alcindor and Amna Nawaz from PBS Newshour.
In order to have qualified for the debate, candidates had to bring in the support of at least 200,000 unique donors and register at least 4 percent support in four qualifying polls or at least 6 percent support in two approved polls in Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada, or South Carolina.
Sen. Cory Booker did not make the debate qualifications; Booker led eight other presidential candidates in a letter asking the DNC to "consider alternative debate qualification standards" for four primary debates scheduled for early 2020.
In the wake of this debate, and after the announcement of criteria for the January debate, Secretary Julian Castro withdrew from the presidential race, on Jan. 2, 2020.
The debate criteria for this debate were:
-Over 200,000 unique donors
-And 4% support in four qualifying polls
-Or 6% support in two polls in the early voting states (IA, NH, NV, and SC)
Sen. Booker ran a TV ad during the debate, which we excerpt below.
The top ten Democratic presidential candidates debated at Otterbein University in Atlanta, Georgia,
sponsored by NBC News and the Washington Post.
Changes in the field as a result of this debate:
CEO Tom Steyer (D, CA) made his second appearance in a debate, after months of TV advertising. He is now an established member of the field.
CEO Mike Bloomberg (D, NY) has re-entered the race, committing $35 million to a TV ad campaign. But Bloomberg is disqualified from all future debates, because the current rules require having thousands of donors, and Bloomberg is not accpepting donations at all. The rules for the Jan./Feb. 2020 debates have not yet been set, so Bloomberg could qualify.
Governor Deval Patrick (D, MA) also announced his candidacy. He will accept donations, but there's not enough time to qualify for the December debate, since those debate rules require scoring well in several polls, which will likely not even include Patrick for a couple of weeks. There are a half-dozen debates already set up for Jan./Feb. 2020, for which Patrick will attempt to qualify.
Three candidates dropped out of the race in the wake of this debate (in part, perhaps, because of this debate):
Rep. Joe Sestak (D, PA), dropped out on Dec. 1, 2019; former U.S. Representative from 2006-2010, and a Navy Admiral.
Governor Steve Bullock (D, MT), dropped out on Dec. 2, 2019; Governor since 2012, and Attorney General of Montana from 2007-2012.
Senator Kamala Harris (D, CA), dropped out on Dec. 3, 2019; Senator since 2016, and Attorney General of California from 2011-2016.
Deval Patrick enters presidential race: Nov. 13, 2019
Massachusetts Governor to file papers for New Hampshire presidential primary
Governor Deval Patrick (D-MA) is a late entry to the Democratic presidential primary.
He may qualify for debates in early 2020, but certainly not the debate set for next week (Nov. 20th). His policy stances:
Mike Bloomberg re-enters presidential race: Nov. 8, 2019
New York Mayor files papers for Alabama presidential primary
Mayor Mike Bloomberg (I-NYC) met the deadline today to get onto the Alabama presidential primary ballot (the earliest deadline in the country), implying that he would meet deadlines to get onto other state ballots.
Bloomberg cited Joe Biden's failure at sparking centrist support, which Bloomberg considers his constituency (as opposed to the progressive constituency sparked by Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren).
Bloomberg is a billionaire, like Tom Steyer (D-CA) and Donald Trump (R-FL), but unlike those two, Bloomberg won election and re-election before running for President.
Business Insider Today, a financial news service, hosted the first Republican presidential primary debate (yes, there IS a Republican primary!), on Sept. 24, 2019, and live-streamed on Facebook.
Some highlights:
Gov. Bill Weld (R, MA) was the Libertarian Party's Vice-Presidential nominee in 2016, but has re-enrolled as a Republican for 2020.
Rep. Joe Walsh (R, IL) served in Congress but retured and has run a conservative radio talk show ever since. He considers himself a member of the Tea Party.
Gov. Mark Sanford (R, SC) was invited, but claimed a "scheduling conflict" and did not attend.
President Donald Trump (R, NY) was invited to the debate but did not respond. He was the major topic anyway, and we include some excerpts from video played during the debate, with opponents' responses.
The moderators were Business Insider politics editor Anthony Fisher; Business Insider columnist Linette Lopez, and Business Insider editorial director Henry Blodget.
De Blasio said on a morning ralk show today, "I'm gonna end my presidential campaign, continue my work as mayor of New York City and I'm gonna keep speaking up for working people and for a Democratic party that stands for working people."
De Blasio conceded in an NBC News Op-Ed that he had "reached the point where I feel I have contributed all I can to this Democratic primary."
Sept. 12, 2019, debate at Texas Southern University in Houston; hosted by ABC as "Your Voice, Your Vote," and by Univision with Spanish-language commentary.
Texas Southern University is an "HBCU", a Historically Black College and University, which was a topic in the debate.
This debate was the first one-evening-only debate, with just the top ten contenders. The qualifying rules were:
Candidates must show 130,000 unique donors (double the 65,000 requirement from the June and July debates)
Candidates must poll at 2% or above in four polls (also double the 1% requirement from the June and July debates)
Candidates must accomplish BOTH of the above (EITHER criteria was sufficient for the June and July debates).
Ten candidates met both criteria for the upcoming debate; three additional candidates met one criterion (and hence are excluded from the debate).
If eleven or more candidates had qualified, the debate would have been split into two evenings.
Three candidates withdrew from the race after failing to qualify for this debate; a fourth candidate withdrew afterwards; details below and above; here are the contenders in the third debate (in polling order):
Seth Moulton, Democratic Representative from Massachusetts, withdrew from the presidential race on Aug. 23.
Moulton did not make the cut for the September debates, nor had he made the cut for the June and July debates. He will run for re-election for his seat in Congress in 2020.
Joe Walsh, former Republican Representative from Illinois, announced his entry into the presidential race on Aug. 25.
Walsh ran for Congress as a Tea Party candidate, and hosted a radio talk-show after leaving Congress.
We would say "This completes the list of presidential contenders" but we've thought that before and the field has expanded several times this month!
Second Democratic primary debate: July 30-31, 2019
20 contenders debate over two evenings
The Democratic primary debates in Detroit, hosted by CNN, occured during two evenings, July 30 & 31, 2019, for two hours each, with ten candidates each.
Rep. John Ratcliffe (R-TX) is Trump's preliminary nominee. He is the U.S. Rep from Texas' 4th district.
If confirmed by the Senate, Gov. Greg Abbott (R-TX) will call a special election to fill his Congressional seat.
Coats' resignation came about because he and President Trump disagreed about Russian interference in U.S. elections, with Coats presenting FBI and CIA evidence of ongoing election tampering.
Mark Sanford enters Republican race for President, July 17, 2019
Former Governor of South Carolina to take on Trump for nomination
Mark Sanford, former U.S. Rep. and former Governor, announced the "exploratory" stage of his presidential campaign.
Some highlights of his political career and issue excerpts:
Hosted by NBC News and Telemundo; moderated by Lester Holt, Savannah Guthrie, Chuck Todd, Rachel Maddow, and José Díaz-Balart; the debates took place at the Adrienne Arsht Center in Miami, Florida.
The Democratic Party announced the criteria for presidential candidates to qualify for the party's official third and fourth round of debates in September and October. Details:
ABC and Univision will host the September 12th debate, simulcast in English and Spanish. A possible second evening of debates will be decided by the number of candidates meeting the new criteria.
Candidates must qualify by either meeting the minimum number of donors, OR exceeding polling criteria in party-sanctioned polls.
Candidates must gather donations from 130,000 individual donors (this is double the 65,000 donor count for the June and July debates).
Donors must be represented with a minuimum of 400 donors in each of the 50 states (this is double the 200 per-state donor count for the June and July debates).
Candidates must poll at 2% or higher in three party-approved polls during July and August (this is double the 1% polling requirement for the June and July debates).
The first debates will be held June 26 and 27 (maximum of 10 candidates per evening) in Miami and airing on NBC, MSNBC and Telemundo. The second debates will be held July 30 and 31 in Detroit and airing on CNN.
As of the end of May, eighteen candidates have qualified for the June Democratic debates (details below; full list of possible candidates on the top of our home page). And today OnTheIssues adds one final possible Democratic debate contender, and two non-Democratic candidates:
Wayne Messam: Democratic Mayor of Miramar Florida; running to qualify for the June debate.
Justin Amash: Elected as a Republican to the United States Congress; he has been recruited by the Libertarian Party to run as their nominee.
Steve Bullock and Michael Bennet announce: May 2, 2019
Montana Governor and Colorado Senator both announce for the Democratic nomination for President
As the Democratic presidential primary debates approach in a few weeks, candidates are making their formal candidacy announcements.
The field has settled on 22 candidates (these 22 are the candidates that OnTheIssues covers, as shown in the "Democratic primary contenders" section on top of our homepage).
However, only 20 will make it into the Democratic primary debates, according to the rules of the early debates.
Candidates can qualify by two methods: either by garnering over 1% in three Democratic Party-sanctioned polls, OR by collecting donations from over 65,000 citizens.
If the number that qualify exceeds 20, as now looks likely, then candidates are prioritized by their poll numbers.
We show below each of the 22 candidates, and their status in both qualification measurements, with two recent poll results.
Few polls include all 22 candidates (some because they had not yet announced; others because 22 is too many!), which is why the "65,000-donor rule" was added.
We list the candidates in the order they qualify for the debates, if the actual qualification were to be held today. (In other words, the 2 at the bottom do not make it).
Candidate
CNN poll in Iowa (12/15/18 net favorable %)
RealClearPolitics average of polls (through 4/29/19)
20th Democratic contender joins debates, April 12, 2019
Rules for debates scheduled for June
OnTheIssues now covers 20 Democratic contenders, which is the maximum allowed by the rules of the early debates.
The first two scheduled debates -- of about a dozen anticipated debates -- will be held in June and July. The rules are:
There will be two debates, of ten candidates each, on two consecutive evenings.
The ten participants in each debate will be selected randomly (unlike the "two-tiered" system of the Republicans in 2016, which led to accusations of having "the kiddie table.")
A candidate qualifies for the debates by exceeding 1% in three Democratic-party-approved polls, OR they can show "grassroots support"...
A candidate shows "grassroots support" by exceeding 65,000 donors in at least 20 states, with at least 200 unique donors per state.
If the number of qualifiying candidates exceeds 20, then the "poll-based qualifiers" get preference over the "donor-based qualifiers," ranked by polling results.
The 20th candidate is Marianne Wilson, who lists her number of donors on the homepage of her website -- at 70% of the required total this week, and expected to reach the required total soon.
The rest of the field of 20 are listed here, in addition to those in our earlier listings below (these are the new additions to our list just since a month ago!):
Here's the catch for Marianne Williamson and the other less-well-known candidates:
Rule #5 above will exclude candidates if any more candidates now join.
When the 21st candidate joins the race, the struggle begins to NOT be cut out.
The list of likely candidates to still join the race? Here are the candidates we expect may announce by the end of May:
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