Who's going to qualify for the Democratic debates?

[Sestak]

So is there at all a chance that, like, Castro misses the debates? If he’s only one of three...

[Mr. Morden]

So is there at all a chance that, like, Castro misses the debates? If he’s only one of three...

The ABC/WaPo poll had the unusual open question format and the UNH poll was one of the few polls out there that didn't list Castro as an option.  But almost every poll that includes Castro as an option has him getting 1% or so.  So I think he's very likely to make it via the remaining polls over the next 2.5 months.  Or if not, he can probably manage to qualify by reaching the donor threshold.

The potential candidates who seem the least likely to make it are folks like Seth Moulton, Tim Ryan, and Steve Bullock, who are talking about not announcing until April or later (and then you've got Bennet, who's not giving any timeframe at all), and are not included as an option in almost any poll, and presumably won't be until they officially get in.  Plus if they're entering that late, then they probably won't make it to 65,000 donors in time.

[henster]

1% or more in polls or 65,000 unique donors to their campaign. Who makes the cut?

[Former Crackhead Mike Lindell]

It's really a crapshoot for the lowest-tier candidates. The ones who won't hit the donation threshold will have to pray for a lot of polling, so that they might stumble up into 1% in at least three of them. I find it hard to imagine a Swalwell or Ryan or Inslee or Moulton is going to hit the 65,000 number before June, so they're relying on poll numbers. If enough are commissioned and their names are included, they'll very likely hit 1% in enough.

Andrew Yang is the only one, I think, that could get in through donors alone, disregarding poll numbers, I don't see anyone else pulling that off, and Yang's inclusion in polling is spotty.

[Mr. Morden]

It looks like only three polls that the DNC will actually count have been conducted so far.  Of those, this is the number of those three that various candidates managed 1% in:

Biden 3
Harris 3
O’Rourke 3
Sanders 3
Warren 3
———qualification line———
Booker 2
Brown 2
Gabbard 2
Gillibrand 2
Klobuchar 2
Bloomberg 1
Buttigieg 1
Castro 1
Hickenlooper 1
Holder 1 I guess he's not running now.
Yang 1

Obviously, there will be at least a few more since we have at least 2.5 months to go, but maybe not as many as folks were previously imagining.  It looks like many of the higher quality pollsters have not been polling this cycle so far.  And note that the criteria say a candidate can't count two polls from the same pollster, so if Monmouth releases another poll, then candidates getting 1% in the last one and the next one can't count both polls separately.

[henster]

Ftr, I have a thread about this here:

https://uselectionatlas.org/FORUM/index.php?topic=313612.0

and note that it looks like only three polls that the DNC will actually count have been conducted so far.  Of those, this is the number of those three that various candidates managed 1% in:

Biden 3
Harris 3
O’Rourke 3
Sanders 3
Warren 3
———qualification line———
Booker 2
Brown 2
Gabbard 2
Gillibrand 2
Klobuchar 2
Bloomberg 1
Buttigieg 1
Castro 1
Hickenlooper 1
Holder 1 I guess he's not running now.
Yang 1

Obviously, there will be at least a few more since we have at least 2.5 months to go, but maybe not as many as folks were previously imagining.  It looks like many of the higher quality pollsters have not been polling this cycle so far.  And note that the criteria say a candidate can't count two polls from the same pollster, so if Monmouth releases another poll, then candidates getting 1% in the last one and the next one can't count both polls separately.

Honestly the 1% threshold seems low, I'd be more comfortable with 2%. A lot of times that percent could be just statistical noise. I think it should be in the DNC's best interest to cull the number of nonserious candidates.

[Mr. Morden]

Honestly the 1% threshold seems low, I'd be more comfortable with 2%. A lot of times that percent could be just statistical noise. I think it should be in the DNC's best interest to cull the number of nonserious candidates.

These criteria aren't going to stay the same for every debate.  From Perez's initial comments on this, it sounded like it would probably only be the June and July debates that would have criteria like this, and after that it would get more strict.  It wouldn't surprise me if by the third debate, they're no longer splitting it up between two nights, and it's just a single debate of the top 10 candidates.

[Lambsbread]

IIRC, someone said Andrew Yang was quickly approaching the 65,000 donation threshold, so I'm guessing the following have either surpassed that or will before the deadline, along with the ones above the qualification line in Mr. Morden's post:

Booker
Gabbard
Gillibrand
Klobuchar

I'm not sure about Buttigieg or Castro, but just following them on Twitter, it seems like they're both in better shape than we might think.

[Progressive Pessimist]

Possibly everyone except for Williamson.

[Mr. Morden]

Possibly everyone except for Williamson.

It's definitely possible that everyone who's already in the race as of today (except Williamson) will manage to qualify.  But these criteria aren't very friendly to anyone who gets in late and isn't already a big name.  If, say, Tim Ryan waits another month before entering the race, then he might not have time to get up to 65,000 donors before the deadline, and there might not be that many polls in which he hits 1% (in part because most pollsters aren't going to include him until he formally enters the race).  OTOH, O'Rourke is already being included in polls, so he already qualifies even though he hasn't announced yet.

[Progressive Pessimist]

Possibly everyone except for Williamson.

It's definitely possible that everyone who's already in the race as of today (except Williamson) will manage to qualify.  But these criteria aren't very friendly to anyone who gets in late and isn't already a big name.  If, say, Tim Ryan waits another month before entering the race, then he might not have time to get up to 65,000 donors before the deadline, and there might not be that many polls in which he hits 1% (in part because most pollsters aren't going to include him until he formally enters the race).  OTOH, O'Rourke is already being included in polls, so he already qualifies even though he hasn't announced yet.

That's a good point. But for now, it looks like everyone but Williamson would qualify.

[henster]

Possibly everyone except for Williamson.

It's definitely possible that everyone who's already in the race as of today (except Williamson) will manage to qualify.  But these criteria aren't very friendly to anyone who gets in late and isn't already a big name.  If, say, Tim Ryan waits another month before entering the race, then he might not have time to get up to 65,000 donors before the deadline, and there might not be that many polls in which he hits 1% (in part because most pollsters aren't going to include him until he formally enters the race).  OTOH, O'Rourke is already being included in polls, so he already qualifies even though he hasn't announced yet.

Bullock is saying May at the latest for his decision which would make his campaign DOA. There's just no way he meets either criteria that late.

[Kyle Rittenhouse is a Political Prisoner]

Andrew Yang will make it, which will be very funny.

[henster]

Andrew Yang will make it, which will be very funny.

Very high likelihood he makes the cut over sitting Senators and Governors which would be hilarious. I think not making the debate stage while Yang does is a more than good enough reason to drop out.

[Kyle Rittenhouse is a Political Prisoner]

Andrew Yang will make it, which will be very funny.

Very high likelihood he makes the cut over sitting Senators and Governors which would be hilarious. I think not making the debate stage while Yang does is a more than good enough reason to drop out.

Some dude is doing better in polling and fundraising than a Senator from New York who just won 4 million votes.

[ShamDam]

Per the NYT Tracker, there are already 12 declared major candidates (14 if you count Williamson and Yang): https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/us/politics/2020-presidential-candidates.html

How many will make it onto one of the first debate stages? The first Democratic debate is scheduled for June and if there are over 10 eligible candidates, it could take place over 2 nights. Supposedly there will be a cap of 10 per debate stage, for a maximum of 20 candidates on TV.

Will the Democrats surpass the magic number (17) of Republican candidates from last time around?

[AltWorlder]

Yang is shaping up to be the "Google Ron Paul" meme candidate of this election. He's the dark horse for the most memeable candidate. Don't discount memeability.

[Mr. Morden]

Another national poll from Quinnipiac that does not include a 2020 Dem. primary matchup matchup:

https://poll.qu.edu/national/release-detail?ReleaseID=2603

It's really remarkable the extent to which the pollsters that the DNC named as the ones they'd rely on are not actually conducting any polls of the Democratic primary race.  I don't think the DNC was expecting that there'd be so few polls.  That we'd be left with just a slew of polls by Morning Consult and Emerson, which they're not counting.

I'm curious as to whether this will change, and the number of polls will pick up.  Surely, CNN and Selzer will have another poll of Iowa one of these days?

[LabourJersey]

Yang is shaping up to be the "Google Ron Paul" meme candidate of this election. He's the dark horse for the most memeable candidate. Don't discount memeability.

The bolded is honestly the most important takeaway.

[adrac]

https://twitter.com/AndrewYangVFA/status/1103410506969288704
Take a look at this thread. He's added 10k since the start of the month. Clearly going to make it.

[Mr. Morden]

Politico has a new story talking up the chances of Yang and Williamson making the debate stage:

https://www.politico.com/story/2019/03/06/2020-democrat-debates-yang-williamson-1208255

However, the story leaves me rather skeptical that Williamson will make it, as her campaign says she's only about a third of the way to reaching the 65,000 goal.

It also talks about the chaos of having many people on stage at once, but I also think they're overstating the problem, at least compared to past cycles.  We could easily end up with 16 (or fewer) candidates qualifying, which means back to back debate nights with 8 candidates on each night.  8 candidates would be the same number as were in the 2008 Dem. debates, and of course that's fewer than many of the 2008/12/16 GOP debates.

[henster]

Politico has a new story talking up the chances of Yang and Williamson making the debate stage:

https://www.politico.com/story/2019/03/06/2020-democrat-debates-yang-williamson-1208255

However, the story leaves me rather skeptical that Williamson will make it, as her campaign says she's only about a third of the way to reaching the 65,000 goal.

It also talks about the chaos of having many people on stage at once, but I also think they're overstating the problem, at least compared to past cycles.  We could easily end up with 16 (or fewer) candidates qualifying, which means back to back debate nights with 8 candidates on each night.  8 candidates would be the same number as were in the 2008 Dem. debates, and of course that's fewer than many of the 2008/12/16 GOP debates.

I still don't see the problem with just having a kiddie table debate, randomly grouping candidates seems problematic. What if Biden ends up in on a different night than Sanders, there'd be no interaction between two frontrunners in the first debate.

[Mr. Morden]

With the DMR poll out, an update on the # of qualifying polls everyone has got 1% or more in so far, and excluding those who say they’re not running:

Biden 4
Harris 4
O’Rourke 4
Sanders 4
Warren 4
Booker 3
Klobuchar 3
———qualification line———
Buttigieg 2
Castro 2
Gabbard 2
Gillibrand 2
Bennet 1
Bullock 1
Delaney 1
Hickenlooper 1
Inslee 1
Yang 1

Bennet and Bullock have managed to join Biden and O'Rourke in the club of those who've gotten 1% in a qualifying poll without having launched their campaigns yet.

[Galeel]

Does anyone have statistics for the number of individual donors for each candidate?

[History505]

https://twitter.com/AndrewYangVFA/status/1105082002083119104
Yang is almost at 65,000.