This past week, the Democratic National Committee announced the standards that will be used to determine which candidates will appear in the first two debates of the cycle (one in June and one in July). As these standards set a very low bar to participation, it is more likely than not that each debate will actually be two debates on consecutive nights.
A candidate can qualify by meeting one of two standards. First, a candidate qualifies by getting one percent in at least three “approved” polls. I assume by “approved” that the DNC means a poll by a reputable media organization that, at the very least, includes all of the declared candidates that major media organizations and blogs like this site are listing. (There are always a large number of unknown candidates who file paperwork with the FEC and file declarations of candidacy in states like New Hampshire. Currently, beyond the present and former elected officials that are listed here, there are four other candidates who filed paperwork with the FEC to run.) Figuring that we will probably end up with fifteen to twenty candidates, it is likely that there will be over ten candidates who meet this standard.
Second, a candidate can qualify by raising $65,000 from a minimum of 200 donors in a minimum of 20 states. Those candidates who have declared and have announced fundraising to date appear to be blowing well past this threshold. This threshold appears to be set in a way that favors late declarers. If a candidate who declares before May 1 hasn’t raised more than $1 million from over 1,000 donors in over 30 states by June 1, it is unlikely that they will be the nominee.
Given that both standards are set very, very low, it is all but certain that more than ten candidates will qualify for the debates. In 2016, the Republican Party made the mistake of misusing polls to separate candidates into a “JV” and a “Varsity” debate (effectively using differences within the margin of error to kill the chances of any candidate assigned to the “JV” debate). The DNC is avoiding that mistake in two ways. First, it will be randomly assigning candidates to the two debates. Thus, neither debate will be the “weak” candidate debate. Second, rather than having the debates on the same night with the earlier debate occurring before prime time, the two debates will be on consecutive nights. In short, there will not be any candidate defined by the party as “Not Ready for Prime Time.”
As we are still in the middle of candidate announcements, we do not know how many candidates will be running. And how many candidates run will determine how many participate in each debate. My biggest fear is that we will see more than eight candidates on the stage each night. I would rather have three debates with no more than six candidates on the stage rather than two with eight, nine, or ten candidates. As we have seen in the past, a large number of candidates tends to lead to one of two things — either candidates simply reaffirming their support for the party line or the most outrageous candidates monopolizing the stage. Neither result is good for the party or the country. What we need (and what happened in the Democratic debates in 2008) is for the candidates to have enough time to put forward their own take on how to address issues that need to be addressed. We need to hear about the merits of a public option versus the merits of Medicare for all. We need to hear different ideas on how to salvage Social Security. We need to hear different ideas on what a Green New Deal actually means.
As we get closer to the debates and have a final idea of how many candidates will be on the stage, I hope that the actual debate format announced by the DNC and the media companies involved in the debates will encourage a real discussion of ideas. But for now, we know that the DNC is not going to use the rules for the first two rounds of debates to start pushing candidates out of the race.
I think it’s going to be interesting to see if some of the “minor” candidates get in. Pete Buttigieg will be a good case study. He is unlikely to meeting the polling standard. Can he get enough contributions? And we have the two non-politicians in the race who are sometimes included in major media listings: Andrew Yang and Marianne Williamson. Will they be able to get the contributions?