Only five Democrats, all of whom are white, have qualified for next week’s presidential primary debate, leading to a fresh round of criticism of the Democratic Party for not easing up on the qualifications.
Despite 14 contenders remaining in the field, only Joe Biden, Pete Buttigieg, Amy Klobuchar, Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren met the more stringent qualifications for the January 14 debate in Des Moines ahead of Friday’s deadline.
Two contenders who made the last debate stage haven’t qualified for the next one and they are criticizing the Democratic National Committee for not being more lenient in the polling thresh hold given the lack of polls in the field over the holiday period.
Only five candidates – Joe Biden, Bernie Sanders, Pete Buttigieg, Elizabeth Warren and Amy Klobuchar – will be on stage January 14 debate in Des Moines
Andrew Yang and Tom Steyer, who were on stage during last month’s debate in Los Angels, have met the donor qualification for Des Moines’ event.
But they have not the polling thresh hold. Cory Booker also met the donor number but hasn’t qualified in polling nor did he for the Los Angeles debate.
Yang pointed out the lack of qualifying polls for a candidate to prove their debate credentials.
‘There has not been a poll in Iowa, Nevada, South Carolina or right where I am now in New Hampshire that satisfies the DNC in almost a month and a half. So all we want is for there to be polls so that we could show we would easily qualify by the DNC’s own thresh hold. We’re well over the donation thresh hold,’ Yang told CNN’s ‘New Day’ last Tuesday. ‘All we need is there for to be some polls in the field.’
He added he was fine with the thresh holds the party set but wanted there to be enough polling to give candidates a chance to meet the thresh hold.
‘We don’t have a problem with the DNC setting thresh holds as long as there are actually polls so candidates can meet those thresh holds. I want you to put yourself in the shoes of one of the almost 400,000 donors that have fueled this campaign and then there aren’t any polls to even see whether our support has been growing over the past 45 days. That’s not fair to the voter and the DNC should try to make the voice of the American people and not pushing it aside,’ he said.
The DNC did not respond to DailyMail.com’s request for comment.
Additionally, Yang was the only minority candidate on December’s debate stage in Los Angeles. The five contenders who qualified for next week’s debate are all white.
And it will be a notably smaller and whiter stage compared to the very first Democratic debate in June in Miami, which took place over two nights and had 20 candidates on the stage.
For next week’s Des Moines contest, there was a noticeable lack of polls in the eight-week qualifying period, which included the Thanksgiving and Christmas holidays. State polls, too, have been in short supply.
Candidates need at least 5 percent in four pre-approved national polls between Nov. 14 and Jan. 10, or at least 7 percent in two polls in the early states of Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina or Nevada.
The contenders also needed donations from at least 225,000 unique donors nationally, and a minimum of 1,000 unique donors in at least 20 states.
Tom Steyer and Andrew Yang, who made the last Democratic debate, have not met the polling thresh hold for next week’s conteset
Cory Booker made the donor thresh hold for the debate but has not come close in polling
Steyer has hit the five per cent mark in two of the four polls he needs. Yang has only hit it in one and Booker hasn’t reached 5 percent in a single poll.
Yang sent a letter to DNC Chairman Tom Perez on Dec. 21, urging the party to commission four early-state polls before the Jan. 10 debate deadline.
‘With the upcoming holidays and meager number of polls currently out in the field, a diverse set of candidates might be absent from the stage in Des Moines for reasons out of anyone’s control,’ Yang wrote in the letter obtained by the Daily Beast. ‘This is a troubling prospect for our party. Regardless of the DNC’s best intentions, voters would cry foul and could even make unfounded claims of bias and prejudice.’
In the first Democratic debate – held over two nights in Miami – 20 candidates qualified
And in early December Booker and seven other candidates signed a letter to Perez urging the chairman to return to an either/or qualification – candidates would have to meet the polling thresh hold or the donor thresh hold but not both.
That would let Booker on the stage.
Thus far the DNC has not budged even as it’s unclear how many polls may be released by the end of the week.