Although a quirk in the Democratic National Committee’s debate rules mean that more candidates will appear on their next presidential debate stage than the last, the new rules announced for November mean that as few as eight contenders could make the stage.
The DNC will require candidates to have accrued a minimum of 165,000 unique donors and 3% in at least four qualifying polls or 5% in two early primary state polls.
Of the candidates making the October stage, billionaire Tom Steyer, former Obama HUD Secretary Julián Castro, and Sens. Amy Klobuchar and Cory Booker are most endangered by the higher-level qualifications. Steyer and Castro can barely crack a single percentage point in national polling and have failed to earn a single early state poll with 5%, making them all but certain to miss the November debate even though Steyer’s inexplicably met the donor count. Klobuchar, who’s also polling poorly on the national front, already has one qualifying poll from Iowa, but needs more that may not come. Cory Booker has two qualifying polls, but he hasn’t met the donor count.
Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, Pete Buttigieg, Kamala Harris, Joe Biden, Beto O’Rourke, and Andrew Yang have all already met the donor threshold. The first five candidates have met the qualifying standards in all three of the eligible polls released thus far, and the later two have one. These seven seem likely to make the stage, with Booker a close call. The rest of the field will likely be left behind.
