Who's going to qualify for the Democratic debates?

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Vox elaborates on the polling measure:

https://www.vox.com/2019/2/14/18225341/dnc-tom-perez-debates-2020-president

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So, 1% or more in three polls (either nationally or in early primary states), but the polls have to be done by "major news organizations or qualifying universities".  Therefore, I don't think they'll be including polls from, say, Rasmussen or Morning Consult.  Rather, it'll be a similar mix of polls to the ones the RNC used for their debates four years ago (meaning, polls by the TV networks or the NYT, WSJ, etc., or by a few selected universities like Quinnipiac).  Anyone want to compile a leaderboard on this one just based on polls so far?

It sounds like, since both the polling measure and the fundraising measure is cumulative (meaning that what happens in February is just as important as what happens in May), these criteria offer a huge incentive for all the remaining prospective candidates to jump in the race ASAP.  Some of them aren't even being included in polls yet, but probably would if they announced they were running.  I guess Biden, Sanders, and O'Rourke are in a strong enough position polling-wise that they don't have that same incentive.  But for a Hickenlooper or a McAuliffe or whoever, they should get in the race right now if they're going to do so, or they'll be wasting time that they could be using to reach one of these debate thresholds.

Actually quite a few candidates have already had 1+% in 3 Morning Consult polls this year, including Hickenlooper.  That is, unless rounding is an issue.

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Gabbard is at 40k donors. Or she can just get 1% from a 3rd pollster.

https://twitter.com/JordanChariton/status/1108458119456346113

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Gabbard just got 1% in the Quinnipiac California poll. Additionally she's just about at 65k donors. So she'll be qualified either way.

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I wouldn't get too overconfident, but yes he has a good chance. At about $3.40, he's probably got the smallest donors of anyone running, and it'd probably be even lower if there wasn't the $4.20 option. I imagine a lot are just giving him $1.

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In addition to the above post, Gravel's team now are saying they're attempting to go the polling route rather than donations:

But the pollsters don't seem to be including Gravel. We have Bullock, de Blasio, and Kerry with polls counting towards the 3, but the pollsters never bother to poll Gravel.

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It's looking like the limit of 20 might actually matter.  They say they will prioritize those who meet both the donors and the 3 polls, but that will likely be less than 20. So the question is how they'd handle people who met only 1 of them.

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It's looks like the whole 65k donor thing might not be enough, and donors are only used as a tiebreaker. Most pollsters had been excluding Gravel and Williamson, so they would have a hard time being the top 20 with polls.

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Williamson gets a second poll, so she's in better shape than Bennet (and also de Blasio if that one poll doesn't count) now, since she also has the 65k donors.

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Edit: WTF happens if multiple candidates get exactly three 1% polls each, tying for the 20th spot? There doesn’t appear to be additional tiebreakers to resolve this.

Then they look at the number of donors.

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LOL at the DNC rigging it against candidates who didn't have a chance anyways.

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HUGE update:

The DNC has clarified to POLITICO that de Blasio's Reuters poll DOES count, but Bullock's ABC/WaPo poll DOES NOT count. That means de Blasio is confirmed to be at three polls, but Bullock falls back down to two polls, and is not qualified for the debates.

https://www.politico.com/story/2019/06/06/democratic-debates-2020-election-1356115

Updated chart:

The first 16 are basically a lock for the first debate at this point.

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A conspiracy-minded person might suggest that the DNC announced this open-ended poll ban in order to avoid the need for tiebreakers so that they wouldn’t have to clarify/implement new rules...

The real conspiracy would be that the DNC made this decision to pressure Bullock into dropping out and running for Senate instead.

I can actually see that

It doesn't seem sinister enough for the DNC.

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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.

Well, then looks like if Bullock bumps anyone it would be Swalwell. Of course there would be a tie if he just gets a new pollster with 1%.

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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.

It being the DNC there's about 50/50 odds that it's ambiguous because they're incompetent or because they want to choose the candidates they want.

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Funny how Booker is in better shape than Beto. Booker just needs 1 more poll and 20k donors, while Beto needs 3 polls.

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I got an ad on Facebook implying Gravel had reached 58,000 donors. 

58,853 according to this

http://www.graveldonorcount.com

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I got an ad on Facebook implying Gravel had reached 58,000 donors. 

58,853 according to this

http://www.graveldonorcount.com

He's had a great day. Almost 2k more now. Currently 60,670.

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Gravel is only 719 away. He should reach 65,000 either tonight or tomorrow

It'll definitely be today. The question is whether it will be before or during this.

https://twitter.com/MikeGravel/status/1149779764187750401

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https://twitter.com/MikeGravel/status/1149813259349966849

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https://twitter.com/MikeGravel/status/1149813259349966849

Why does it say 30,000 donors?

It's an animation. He got 65k donors.

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Funny how none of the polls that came out today count. I assume we'll get some tomorrow that do.

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The 4 polls are definitely harder than the 130k donors. Booker will obviously make it.

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Here are the official rules:

Each poll must be sponsored by an approved organization, which presently includes the following: Associated Press, ABC News, CBS News, CNN, Des Moines Register, Fox News, Monmouth University, NBC News, New York Times, National Public Radio (NPR), Quinnipiac University, University of New Hampshire, Wall Street Journal, USA Today, Washington Post, and Winthrop University. Any candidate’s four qualifying polls must be conducted by different organizations, or if by the same organization, must be in different geographical areas.  The DNC and its media partners reserve the right to add a Nevada-specific poll sponsor to this list in the near future.

https://democrats.org/press/third-debate/

I would say that would constitute two different organizations, but there's enough ambiguity that the DNC could say no it doesn't count. I mean I woulda thought Bullock had a stronger claim to being invited to the first debate than Swalwell as well 🤷 so you can never be sure about these things.

That looks like to me that only one nationwide poll sponsored by NBC can count.

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There's looking like a good chance we get more than 10 candidates now that we have 11 candidates with at least 2 polls, and another 2 with 1.

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Gabbard just passed 130K donors.

She's at 146k

Wow that was a…suspiciously fast jump.

What's suspicious about it? Google shut down her ads after the first debate, so that debate didn't help her as much as it should have.