Gabbard and Klobuchar hit debate polling thresholds
November 6, 2019
Hawaii Rep. Tulsi Gabbard has qualified for the November Democratic presidential debate and Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar has made the December debate after the release of a new Iowa poll, which also featured Elizabeth Warren, Pete Buttigieg, Bernie Sanders and Joe Biden bunched within 5 points of each other at the top of the field.
Klobuchar got 5 percent support in the Iowa survey from Quinnipiac University released on Wednesday. She previously hit at least 4 percent support in three other polls approved by the Democratic National Committee, according to POLITICO’s tracking, and she has accrued over 200,000 individual donors, the other threshold to make the December debate stage. She had previously qualified for the November debate.
Gabbard made the November stage by getting 3 percent in the new Quinnipiac poll, having previously hit that mark in three other DNC-approved polls, according to POLITICO’s tracking. Gabbard has also accrued the 165,000 donors necessary to qualify for the November debate.
Qualification for the debates is not official until the DNC confirms candidates’ standings after the deadline has passed. POLITICO’s unofficial tally is based off tracking of public polling and donor information.
Gabbard will join nine other candidates on the November stage: Joe Biden, Cory Booker, Buttigieg, Kamala Harris, Klobuchar, Sanders, Tom Steyer, Warren and Andrew Yang.
So far, six candidates — Biden, Buttigieg, Harris, Klobuchar, Sanders and Warren — have qualified for the December debate, which will be co-hosted by POLITICO and PBS.
The debate will be held on Nov. 20 in Atlanta and is co-hosted by MSNBC and The Washington Post. On Monday, the hosts announced that the debate will be two hours long and run from 9 p.m. to 11 p.m Eastern.
In the Qunnipiac poll, four candidates are locked in a tight battle for first place in Iowa. Warren sits at 20 percent, Buttigieg is at 19 percent, Sanders is at 17 percent and Biden is at 15 percent.
The DNC has gradually raised the threshold to participate in the debates, an attempt to winnow the number of candidates on stage and cull the field. Every increase has been modest over the last, but December’s thresholds of four polls at 4 percent (or two early-state polls at 6 percent) and 200,000 unique donors threatens all but the best-polling candidates.
The Quinnipiac University poll was conducted from Oct. 30-Nov. 5 and surveyed 698 Iowa likely Democratic caucus-goers. It has a margin of error of plus or minus 4.5 percentage points.
Source: https://www.politico.com/
