The very crowded club of Democratic hopefuls to the US presidency isn’t closing its doors to new members just yet: the latest of the 25 official candidates joined the race just yesterday.
The very crowded club of Democratic hopefuls to the US presidency isn’t closing its doors to new members just yet: the latest of the 25 official candidates joined the race just yesterday.
But for those who have been campaigning for a while, things are about to get real. The first round of debates is scheduled for this week (June 26, 27), with 20 of the candidates sharing the stage, ten at a time, to discuss their proposals for America.
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The debates will be held at the Adrienne Arsht Center in Miami.
First night: June 26, 9pm to 11pm US eastern time.
Second night: June 27, 9pm to 11pm US eastern time.
On TV: The debate will be broadcast on NBC News, MSNBC, and Telemundo (in Spanish).
There will be 10 candidates on stage each night. To make both debates relevant, each will feature some of the leading candidates, as well as some of the least popular so far.
On June 26, the following will be on stage, from the viewer’s left to right:
On June 27, the stage will be taken by:
The candidates were randomly drawn from two groups, one of leading candidates—those with at least 2% support in each of the 10 polls used as reference—and one with all other candidates.
Steve Bullock, Mike Gravel, Seth Moulton, and Wayne Messam didn’t qualify to participate in the debate. Joe Sestak, who announced his bid on Sunday, won’t participate either.
There were two ways to qualify for the early debates. A candidate needed to get support from at least 1% of voters in three or more national polls from reputable organizations.
Candidates could also qualify if they had at least 65,000 donors, in at least 20 states, with no less than 200 donors in each of the states.
For the following debates, the threshold will be at least 2% in at least four polls.
There will be five anchors for both nights, all from NBC:
The questions will be at the discretion of the hosts and won’t be announced ahead of the debate.
