ABC News will hold the third Democratic debate in September, and the DNC will institute stiffer prerequisites than it has for the first two.
According to Politico, candidates will have to meet both a polling and fundraising threshold, whereas for the first two debates, presidential hopefuls only had to check one of those boxes. For ABC’s debate, they will have to have reached two percent in four polls and have 130,000 unique donors.
Per Politico, at this point, only eight candidates have met the polling standard: former Vice President Joe Biden, Sens. Bernie Sanders (I-VT), Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), Kamala Harris (D-CA), Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) and Cory Booker (D-NJ), South Bend Mayor Pete Buttigieg and former Rep. Beto O’Rourke (D-TX).
With so many candidates in the field, I doubt the debates will make a difference for most candidates. I still think it’s campaigns in early voting states and appearances on the media that matters more.
I predict Gillibrand will be the first of the 25 to withdraw.
Jay Inslee, baby.
Not so fast. Moulton first.
This is a determined group of candidates. I think they all want to let the voters tell them whether they should continue or not. For example, Amy Klobuchar is probably borderline on this polling threshold but I have no doubt that she’s going to show up in IA and stake her candidacy on making a good showing there no matter the polls. Same with Cory Booker.