Who's going to qualify for the Democratic debates?

[The Mikado]

https://twitter.com/TulsiGabbard/status/1170833312010489856

Doing this despite KNOWING that the DNC is not accepting the poll is called "gaslighting," as near as I can tell.

Maybe she'll pull a George Costanza and just show up to the debate even though she doesn't qualify.

[The Mikado]

She needs to just switch to the Republican Party and start whining about how the Democratic Party left her. I have no doubt that she'll be Trump's Zell Miller when all is said and done.

Well, that'd make it her last term in Congress for sure, if nothing else...

[The Mikado]

It's consistently hilarious how many Republicans like OP adore Tulsi Gabbard. That should be a pretty good hint why her support is hovering just over 0 in a Democratic primary.

[The Mikado]

OP currently has 3 Gabbard threads on the top page, including 2 on this topic. Could he just start a Gabbard megathread like other candidates have?

[The Mikado]

[The Mikado]

https://www.politico.com/story/2019/09/23/dnc-debate-1508516?fbclid=IwAR391sM9NwxHo4F3fnrPprzNtfCQFUPb4C-ir1cGUraCjWZIDmRyygiyiDI

"Candidates will need to clear 3 percent in four DNC-approved polls, up from the 2 percent required to qualify for the September and October debates. But the committee also created an additional early-state path to qualify: garnering 5 percent in two approved polls conducted in Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada or South Carolina."

A virtual death knell for most campaigns.

"Most" in a numerical sense, maybe, but only because most of those campaigns couldn't meet the more lenient threshold that was already up. Out of the ten who were on stage in September, only Castro and maybe Klobuchar will have difficulty with this new threshold.

Fully expect:

Biden
Warren
Sanders
Buttigieg
Harris
Yang
Booker (assuming he stays in)
O'Rourke

To all be there in November. Maybe Klobuchar too, if lucky.

[The Mikado]

Booker will almost certainly make it if he stays in. In the post-9/13 timeframe for qualification, he's already gotten 2 out of the four polls he needs.

[The Mikado]

If the cutoff is 5%, I'd expect we lose Klobuchar and Harris as well. No way either of them gets 5% four times by mid January, especially considering that there's usually no polls over the Christmas/New Years week.

[The Mikado]

The candidates can basically be divided into three groups.

Top tier, have a decent chance

1. Joe Biden
2. Bernie Sanders
3. Elizabeth Warren
4. Pete Buttigieg

Some presence but no chance

5. Andrew Yang
6. Michael Bloomberg
7. Amy Klobuchar
8. Tom Steyer
9. Tulsi Gabbard
10. Cory Booker

No support, no chance

11. Julian Castro
12. Michael Bennet
13. John Delaney
14. Marrianne Williamson
15. Deval Patrick

The people in the middle section will be on the edge of qualifying for debates, while nobody in the 3rd section will anymore.

Cory Booker belongs in your third group.

[The Mikado]

Just took a quick check, and I think we've had zero qualifying polls from Nevada or SC since Jan. 15th.  So all we have currently for the Feb. 19th debate are qualifying *national* polls.

Of those, it looks like Biden, Sanders, and Warren all already have four or more polls at 10%+, so they've already qualified.  Bloomberg and Buttigieg each have just one poll each at 10%+, so they need three more to go.

However, Buttigieg seems pretty likely to get at least 1 delegate out of Iowa and/or NH, if polling is to be believed, so he'll presumably make it.  Klobuchar looks like she's got a shot at one or more delegates out of Iowa as well.  I guess we'll have to wait and see.  And then, assuming we get more NV/SC polls, Steyer could certainly make it on NV/SC polling, but Bloomberg will presumably have to rely on national polling, since he's not competing in the early states.

Klobuchar has a shot at making these requirements, but I still think it's more likely than not she gets 0 delegates in Iowa, which, if that happens, means she's not going to make this.