2020 Democratic presidential long shot Tulsi Gabbard doesn’t plan on dropping out of the race for the White House anytime soon.
Speaking with voters at a town hall in Atlanta on Saturday, the Hawaii congresswoman addressed concerns that she may end her presidential bid after failing to qualify for the Democratic Party’s third round of debates next month.
“I started hearing from a lot of people in the media when they said, ‘OK, you didn’t make the third debate. Are you quitting?'” she said.
Much to the audience’s pleasure, Gabbard then declared, “Hell, no!” Her assertion was met with cheers from the crowd while she repeated, “Hell, no!”
When asked if @TulsiGabbard was dropping out after not making the third debate stage, her answer, “hell no!” pic.twitter.com/QvkImQdVKv
— Beatrice-Elizabeth Peterson (@MissBeaE) August 31, 2019
“If any of them had been listening to what I’ve been saying about what this movement is about, about why I’m running for president, and what is at stake, they would understand why we are here and why we will never quit,” she added.
Gabbard faces an uphill battle in the 2020 race after she didn’t make the cut for the September Democratic primary debate. The qualifying metrics for the event included having 130,000 donors and registering at 2% in four qualifying polls. While she met the donor threshold, Gabbard did not meet the polling requirements.
Her exclusion from the upcoming debate came after she took a two-week break from campaigning in order to fulfill her National Guard active-duty training obligations. Her campaign noted that she “exceeded 2% support in 26 national and early state polls, but only two of them are on the DNC’s ‘certified’ list.”
