Democratic presidential candidates unlikely to make the January debate stage may get a reprieve from pending rules changes that could clear the way for Cory Booker, Michael Bloomberg, and Julian Castro to participate.
Tom Perez, Democratic National Committee chair, told the New York Times that both a polling and donor threshold for debate qualification will remain in place for the Jan. 14 debate in Iowa, a blow to the eight candidates who failed to meet the mark for the December round and have a lower chance of meeting it for the January round.
Booker, a New Jersey senator, and eight other presidential candidates — seven who qualified for the December debate plus Castro, a former housing secretary — signed a letter sent to the DNC on Saturday urging the committee to change the bar for qualification to either a donor threshold or a polling threshold rather than both.
“The escalating thresholds over the past few months have unnecessarily and artificially narrowed what started as the strongest and most diverse Democratic field in history before voters have had a chance to be heard,” the letter read.
Participation for the December debate required candidates to secure 200,000 donors plus meet a polling threshold of either 4% support in four DNC-approved primary polls or 6% support in two early state polls. Debate requirements have steadily increased for the six debates in 2016, but Perez did not say whether the DNC would again raise the bar for January.
Booker, Castro, and Hawaii Rep. Tulsi Gabbard met the December donor threshold but did not secure the required polls. Five other candidates did not meet either metric: Colorado Sen. Michael Bennet, Bloomberg, former Maryland Rep. John Delaney, former Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick, and spiritual author Marianne Williamson.
There could be hope for the candidates to make the three debates scheduled in February, though. Perez said he might eliminate the thresholds or use results from early state nominating contests as a new qualifying threshold.
Eliminating a donor threshold is the only way that Bloomberg, a billionaire and former New York mayor, could participate in the debates because he is self-funding his campaign and not accepting outside donations.
Perez said that he hears complaints about debate rules from both sides.
“I’ve had days where I’ve gotten calls, literally, one after another, from person A, who I have great respect for, who said, ‘You’ve got to help. We need a narrower field,’” Perez said. “Then person B calls saying, ‘The field is too narrow.’”
