The Democratic National Committee (DNC) has announced four debates set for early 2020. The debates will be held in each of the first four primary and caucus states of Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada and South Carolina.
(Via the DNC)
January 14: CNN, in partnership with the The Des Moines Register, will host the seventh debate at Drake University in Des Moines, Iowa.
February 7: ABC, in partnership with WMUR-TV and Apple News, will host the eighth Democratic debate at St. Anselm College in Manchester, New Hampshire.
February 19: NBC News & MSNBC will host the ninth Democratic debate in Las Vegas, Nevada – in partnership with The Nevada Independent.
February 25: CBS News and the Congressional Black Caucus Institute will co-host the tenth Democratic debate at The Gaillard Center in Charleston, South Carolina. Twitter will be a debate partner.
The sixth presidential debate will be held on Dec. 19 in Los Angeles and will be co-hosted by PBS and Politico. In November, the DNC had a little meltdown with Politico after the DNC learned that Politico had selected Tim Alberta, a reporter with ties to conservative media, to serve as one of the moderators in its upcoming presidential debate.
As the field narrows and the qualifications for the candidates to participate become more stringent, the DNC and the candidates have had to grapple with criticism that the process seems to be weeding out the candidates of color two months before the first caucus takes place in Iowa. Andrew Yang just qualified for the upcoming debate, but he will join six white candidates on the debate stage in December. Former Vice President Joe Biden, Sens. Elizabeth Warren, Bernie Sanders and Amy Klobuchar, as well as South Bend Mayor Pete Buttigieg and hedge fund billionaire Tom Steyer are all set to appear.
Thursday is the last day for candidates to meet the polling qualifications to participate in December's debate. While it's still possible for Tulsi Gabbard to qualify, Gabbard announced on Tuesday that she will be skipping the sixth debate to spend "precious time directly meeting with and hearing from the people of New Hampshire and South Carolina."
For a number of reasons, I have decided not to attend the December 19th "debate" — regardless of whether or not there are qualifying polls. I instead choose to spend that precious time directly meeting with and hearing from the people of New Hampshire and South Carolina.
— Tulsi Gabbard (@TulsiGabbard) December 10, 2019
Democratic candidate Cory Booker tweeted on Thursday that he will likely not be on the debate stage next week but said that he sees a path to victory that doesn't require the debate stage in order to get there.
Today is the deadline for the DNC's December debate qualifying threshold—and while I may not be on the debate stage next Thursday, thanks to the outpouring of support over the past few weeks, we know there’s a path to victory, and we no longer need the debate stage to get there.
— Cory Booker (@CoryBooker) December 12, 2019
The DNC has not yet announced the qualifications for candidates to participate in the four debates announced on Thursday.