Billionaire investor Tom Steyer has qualified for the fourth Democratic presidential debate in October.
Steyer entered the Democratic primary after the second debate in July and missed the deadline to qualify for the third primary debate in September. He has spent millions of his own money on ads to catch up to some of the more established candidates, spurring accusations that he bought his way into the race.
Steyer barely missed a spot in the September debate, falling one qualifying poll short. At the Aug. 28 deadline, Steyer had amassed more than 130,000 individual donors and had hit 2% support among Democratic voters in three qualifying polls.
For the fourth debate, the Democratic National Committee will accept polls used to qualify for the third debate to count toward the four needed to earn a spot on the stage in October. A CBS/YouGov poll released Sunday pushed Steyer over the edge, showing he had hit the 2% benchmark for Democratic voters in Nevada.
“We are thrilled that Tom will be able to share his vision — of how together we can fix our broken political system — with the American public,” said Heather Hargreaves, Steyer’s campaign manager.
Steyer is the 11th Democratic presidential candidate to qualify for the October debate, allowing the DNC to split the debate between two nights, if it chooses. The DNC has not yet said whether the debate will take place over two nights or one.
The other qualifying candidates are former Vice President Joe Biden, New Jersey Sen. Cory Booker, South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttigieg, former Housing Secretary Julián Castro, California Sen. Kamala Harris, Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar, former Texas Rep. Beto O’Rourke, Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren, and former tech executive Andrew Yang.
