Who's going to qualify for the Democratic debates?

[The Other Castro]

Under my reading of the tiebreaker rules, nobody on the bubble got any tiebreaker help from this one.  However, under the reading that Castro mentioned above, Bennet got tiebreaker help here by getting a second Selzer poll at 1%, which would make Swalwell the most at risk candidate of being bumped by Bullock among everyone above the qualification line.

Rereading the rules again, it does seem like the DNC is going for total polls, regardless of duplicates. I feel like I change this layout every day because of new DNC rule changes and reinterpretations lol



I've added Gillibrand, Hickenlooper, and Ryan to the Safe Zone.

[The Other Castro]

Did Gillibrand pass the Donor threshold? I know the campaign said they were close

Not yet, but she is probably very close. Anywhere between 60K and 65K.

[The Other Castro]

Yeah I mean it's definitely not clear-cut by any standard, and I agree that using total polls makes for lousy consistency, but that's what people from 538 and Politico seem to be going with. Still, it's useful to have every angle covered in order to be ready for whichever interpretation is used by the DNC.

[The Other Castro]

This sounds slightly different from what we were previously told.  I thought the DNC previously said that those whose polling average is over 2% would be split between the two nights.  While there's an outside chance that this'll change in the next two days, at present, only 8 candidates have a 2% or more polling average, not 10 candidates.  Have they changed this?

I'd probably chalk that up to The Hill being garbage, and not reading the rules carefully. It's almost the same though, as the top 9 (as you mentioned, now Julian Castro included) = those at 2%+. Btw, Castro's three 2% polls are indeed all different.

[The Other Castro]

Quinnipiac national poll coming at 2pm today, may be Bullock’s last chance.

[The Other Castro]

ANOTHER ONE (dabs)

https://twitter.com/monmouthpoll/status/1138461150037905409?s=21

This the first Monmouth Nevada poll, so it’s eligible for everyone.

[The Other Castro]

Quinnipiac poll is in....and basically no change. 1% for Ryan and Yang, but that doesn’t really matter.

[The Other Castro]

Trump is going to roast the Democratic party as anti-troops for excluding Moulton. Why the party wants to play with fire like that when they could just slide him in makes no sense.

He'll also roast the party for excluding a red state governor and say it's because Dems hate the red states.

There's no drawback to expanding the field. We are walking into a self-created trap on willingly.

Moulton, who got 0% in 14 straight polls and is likely far below 65K donors? Btw the debates also include Buttigieg and Gabbard, who both served.

[The Other Castro]

CBS and YouGov will have a "Battleground Tracker" poll coming out on Sunday, which polls Iowa, New Hampshire, and South Carolina:

https://mailchi.mp/cbsnews/cbs-news-will-debut-its-2020-battleground-tracker-on-face-the-nation-sunday-547733

There will be separate results for each of the three aforementioned early states.  I assume this then counts as three separate polls?  If so, then this could be a big chance for candidates to get new polls to qualify for the July debate.

This would be pretty funny if Bullock gets 1 or 2% in some of these, right after the June debate cutoff closed. This is important to note, however:

https://twitter.com/ZachMontellaro/status/1139552842824527872

Fox and NBC/WSJ will also be coming out with new polls soon.

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/D9Bi-PrXoAE1LbV.jpg:large

So that's like... 5 polls on Sunday? Big day.

[The Other Castro]

As Mr. Morden mentioned in the CBS polling thread, Delaney picked up a 2% poll, which likely secures his spot for July, assuming the poll is eligible. In addition, Bullock, Gravel, and Messam picked up a 1% result, bringing it to Bullock 3, Messam 2, and Gravel 1. These numbers will likely change over the next month, I’ll post an updated chart later on, but tiebreakers will very likely have to be used.

A note on Gravel, him making the July debate isn’t out of the realm of possibility. Remember, Williamson had that perfect sequence of events where she broke 65K donors and then got two more 1% polls to double qualify. Gravel is probably around 50K donors by now, and most of the eligible pollsters are now including him.

[The Other Castro]

Today's USAT/Suffolk poll is possibly another disaster waiting to happen for the July debate. It had Bullock, Ryan, and Yang at a rounded 1% (between 0.5 and 1), but the USAT article only specified candidates above true 1% (ex: Hickenlooper at 1.04%) as being "over 1%".

The important takeaway here is that, although Bullock has a rounded 1%, which would count in most other polls toward the debates, in this poll it may not. The main Politico reporter covering the debate polls thinks it does not count, and has reached out to the DNC for clarification on this subject, so we may get more information on this soon. But, this would be the difference between Bullock tying for last place, and Bullock taking the lead over another qualified candidate in # of polls (regardless of total polls vs unique polls counting method).

[The Other Castro]

Currently, I'm going to play it safe and not count the USAT poll for Bullock until there is a rule clarification. Here's my chart for July:



This is my chart for the September debates, based on fundraising numbers and likelihood to meet the polling requirements (since no polls count for this one until after the June debate):

[The Other Castro]

https://twitter.com/AmiHorowitz/status/1139601502912356352

Ami Horowitz has no shot at actually making the debates, but he's got far more donations than I would have imagined. 

Ami’s whole shtick is manipulation to try and make people look stupid, and now he’s running a grift on people who think donations can actually help him qualify for the debates, which is impossible at this stage without qualifying polls (and pollsters aren’t going to include a Republican troll in a Democratic poll)

[The Other Castro]

What about the August debates?

There are no August debates. The schedule is:

1A/1B - June 26/27
2A/2B - July 30/31
3 - September 12 (3B on September 13 if somehow 11 candidates qualify)
4 - October

[The Other Castro]

Yang has 122,500 donors as of 6/18.

https://twitter.com/AndrewYang/status/1141830601013714944

[The Other Castro]

I just took a look at all the polling for the month of June (not just the polls that qualify, but all of the polls, and I'm assuming that the future qualifying polls will be similar to what we've been getting recently).  And it really looks like Klobuchar's polling has taken a turn for the worse.  She's getting just 1% in virtually every poll now (and sometimes 0%).  Unless tomorrow's debate gives her a bounce in the polls, or maybe unless we get an unexpectedly large number of qualifying polls from Iowa, I don't see her qualifying for the September debate.  It might only be Biden, Buttigieg, Sanders, Warren, Harris, O'Rourke, Booker, and that's it (and even Booker might not make it, because it's not totally clear he'll hit the donor number).  Yang is probably the next most likely after that, probably more likely than Klobuchar at this point, IMHO.

Though again, it depends on how the polls change after this week's debates.

Looking over the last two month polling period (April 19 - June 19), and using the DNC rules of one poll per pollster (per region), here's what I found for number of 2%+ polls by candidate:

Biden, Sanders, Warren, Buttigieg, Harris, O'Rourke - 13
Booker - 12
Klobuchar - 8
Yang - 4
Castro - 2
Gabbard, Ryan, Hickenlooper, Delaney - 1
All others - 0

So, I should probably adjust my chart somewhat, but in this 2 month period among qualified pollsters at least, Klobuchar seems to be doing fine. I guess she's just lucky that she's doing better in the polls that count towards the debate. As it stands now, the Big 6 + Booker, Klobuchar, and Yang are the only 9 that have shown an ability to earn 4 qualifying 2% polls over a 2 month period.

[The Other Castro]

Looking over the last two month polling period (April 19 - June 19), and using the DNC rules of one poll per pollster (per region), here's what I found for number of 2%+ polls by candidate:

Biden, Sanders, Warren, Buttigieg, Harris, O'Rourke - 13
Booker - 12
Klobuchar - 8
Yang - 4
Castro - 2
Gabbard, Ryan, Hickenlooper, Delaney - 1
All others - 0

So, I should probably adjust my chart somewhat, but in this 2 month period among qualified pollsters at least, Klobuchar seems to be doing fine. I guess she's just lucky that she's doing better in the polls that count towards the debate. As it stands now, the Big 6 + Booker, Klobuchar, and Yang are the only 9 that have shown an ability to earn 4 qualifying 2% polls over a 2 month period.

But most of those polls are from April/May.  By going all the way back to April, it looks like she's doing fine.  But if you just look at polls from June, it's not good for her.  I see 20 national polls in Wikipedia's list for the month of June, and Klobuchar only reached 2% in 2 of them (Yang got 2% in 3 polls from that period).  Of course, most of those don't count towards qualifying for the debate, but I don't think there's any systematic difference between those that qualify and those that don't for Klobuchar.  Among the 5 DNC-approved national polls from the same period, looks like she's at 2% in just 1 of them.  (2 for Yang.)

So I think as of June, she's dropped enough that she's not going to qualify if this keeps up.  OTOH, she has kept getting 2% in Iowa, so if we have a few qualifying polls from Iowa, then that could be enough.

OK yeah you do make some good points on looking at June alone for trajectory, and I'm not sure if I have my dates wrong (I'm going by poll publish date), but I see four 2%+'s for Klobuchar in June (CNN, FOX, Monmouth IA, CBS IA), and three 2%+'s for Yang in June (Monmouth, Fox, Monmouth NV). Luckily for her an Iowa poll is just as good as a National poll, though I agree Yang is doing better than her among recent National polls, and she may end up needing these Iowa polls to save her skin. I'd guess there will be at least two Iowa polls in the eligible polling period, which, based on past Iowa results (she looks to be over 1% in all of them), should get Klobuchar half of the way there.

(Yang is also very close to 130K donors and it's unclear how close Klobuchar is to that right now)

[The Other Castro]

Gabbard and Yang will both make the September debate

Yang is in good shape given he’s already met the fundraising requirement, though we still need to see if he can hit four 2% polls in time. Gabbard, on the other hand, didn’t exactly gain that many new donors. Her donor pace may increase as the deadline gets closer, but I don’t know if I’d call it a sure thing. Also, I believe she’s only ever gotten one poll at 2%, and she will need four of them. That may be pretty difficult.

[The Other Castro]

Looking at how the field was whittled throughout the 2016 RNC debates for reference:

Debate 1: 10 main, 7 undercard (100% of original field)
-Perry drops out
Debate 2: 11 main, 4 undercard (88%)
-Walker drops out, Gilmore rejected
Debate 3: 10 main, 4 undercard (82%)
-Gilmore rejected
Debate 4: 8 main, 4 undercard (71%)
-Jindal drops out, Gilmore, Graham, Pataki rejected
Debate 5: 9 main, 4 undercard (76%)
-Graham and Pataki drop out, Gilmore rejected
Debate 6: 7 main, 3 undercard (59%)
-Paul no show
Debate 7: 7 main, 4 undercard (65%)
-Huckabee, Paul, Santorum drop out, Trump no show
Debate 8: 7 main (41%)

It wasn’t until this point, on 2/6/2016, that fewer than 10 candidates, and less than half the field, participated in a debate. We’re (reasonably) likely to reach that point during this year’s 4th debate, 5 months earlier.

[The Other Castro]

With the two post-debate polls (CNN and Suffolk), I've updated my September/October chart (assuming that October will in fact have the same rules, just with a later cutoff date). Shocker, I'm moving O'Rourke out of the Safe Zone because he has shown that he is not guaranteed to always get  2%+. I'll add him back once he gets 4 qualifying polls.



No real implications for July; Swallwell and Bullock (and technically also Bennet) are below 1% in the latest USAT/Suffolk poll.

Edit: Rather than post a new chart, I've updated this chart to include the most recent Quinnipiac poll (Biden, Harris, Sanders, Warren, Buttigieg, and Booker all got above 2%)

[The Other Castro]

Big news: Politico got clarification that the USAT/Suffolk polls WILL be rounded, so Bullock increases to 4 polls for July, and Booker increases to 3 polls for September/October. Bullock has now broken the tie, taken spot 20, and kicked out Swalwell.

https://t.co/3376by4992

[The Other Castro]

Mr. Morden, the DNC has finally clarified on the use of unique polls for tiebreakers.

The DNC said its first tiebreaker rule — the average of each candidate’s top three qualifying polls — will not count multiple polls from the same pollster that cover the same geography. For example, if a low-polling candidate has two Iowa polls at 2 percent from the same pollster and two national surveys from different pollsters at 1 percent, the candidate’s polling average for tiebreaker purposes would include only one of those 2-percent surveys from Iowa.

But say there are candidates still tied after the polling-average tiebreaker, the number of qualifying polls in which each candidate earned at least 1 percent in support would not take pollster or geography into consideration. Instead, all qualifying polls are counted.

So, it is in fact ALL polls, regardless of duplicates, that are used for poll counting during tiebreaks.

https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/have-we-seen-the-last-of-eric-swalwell/amp/?__twitter_impression=true

[The Other Castro]

All recent polls have now been incorporated, taking into account clarifications from the DNC. Bullock is now in the 20th spot instead of Swalwell for July. Additionally, Biden, Sanders, Harris, Warren, and Buttigieg have all officially qualified for the September (and assuming October as well) debate.

Updated July debates chart:



Updated September/October debates chart:

[The Other Castro]

Lol OK I'm not going to remake my July chart for one poll since I literally just updated it, but a new Reuters poll just dropped. Though it was banned from future debates, it is still allowed for July, and folks.......Bullock gets another one! Bullock is at 1% here, and none of the other notable low polling candidates did. This brings his new total to 5, tied with Bennet, and now two polls ahead of Swalwell. Swalwell is definitely at risk, and likely to be left out barring a major turnaround.

[The Other Castro]

Updated September/October chart with new NBC/WSJ poll:




Quick note for July: Gravel is roughly 6K away from qualifying by donors, but 20 candidates have already qualified by polls, so donors-only would not get him into the debates. He'll either need two polls at 1% in the next 5 days, or another qualified candidate to inexplicably drop out or not submit their polls for debate qualification.

Edit: With the new FOX SC poll, Booker’s now at 4/4 qualifying polls. Passing the 130K threshold should be pretty easy for him as his last count was 115K.