Who's going to qualify for the Democratic debates?

[Sestak]

OMFG SHE DID IT

[The Other Castro]

Updated with new Monmouth poll. I made two versions since it is still unclear whether or not the Reuters poll counts for de Blasio.

With de Blasio 1% from Reuters:



Without de Blasio 1% from Reuters:

[Mr. Morden]

New Monmouth poll is out, and the only person to move up is Williamson, since everyone else who got 1% in this poll has already gotten 1% in a previous Monmouth poll.  That makes Williamson essentially a lock to be invited to the first debate:

Biden 10
Booker 10
Buttigieg 10
Harris 10
Klobuchar 10
O’Rourke 10
Sanders 10
Warren 10
Yang 8
Castro 7
Gillibrand 6
Hickenlooper 5
Inslee 5
Ryan 5
Gabbard 4
Williamson 3 (but also has 65,000 donors, so is in good shape on tiebreakers)
Bullock 3*
de Blasio 3*
Delaney 3
Swalwell 3
———qualification line———
Bennet 2
Kerry 1
Messam 1

Bold = they are in a very precarious position on tiebreakers (if it comes to that), because they have 3 or fewer polls, and all of them are at only 1% in all of those polls, *and* they haven't yet qualified on donors.
Asterisk = Apparently, there's been disagreement on whether all of Bullock and de Blasio's polls really count, so just flagging that even though my guess is that they would count.

So, assuming that Bullock and de Blasio aren't bounced on the basis of a weird reading of the DNC rules, we would have 20 candidates qualifying as of today, but if Bennet gets a third poll in the next few weeks, then he's in a tie with Bullock, de Blasio, Delaney, and Swalwell, and the five of them have to go to the next tiebreakers to figure out which four of the five of them make it in.

[The Other Castro]

I believe, when there is a reasonable case to be made, the DNC will err on the side of inclusiveness. If it comes down to it, I think Bullock's and de Blasio's questionable polls will be counted. They really don't want to be seen as unnecessarily intervening to stop candidates from making the debates.

[brucejoel99]

Inslee closing in on 65K fast:

https://twitter.com/tommatzzie/status/1131714124985974784

[The Other Castro]

Inslee has crossed the 65K donor mark, securing his debate spot. His Sr. Comms Advisor says Inslee’s donor rate increased by 40% after his climate change policy rollout.

[Gass3268]

DNC is going to ensure that those polling over 2% are evenly split between the two debates.

https://twitter.com/ZachMontellaro/status/1132017679500566528

[henster]

DNC is going to ensure that those polling over 2% are evenly split between the two debates.

https://twitter.com/ZachMontellaro/status/1132017679500566528

This all feels very participation trophiness, trying to reward candidates who aren't even trying. I don't know why they don't like the idea of an undercard debate if they have a breakout moment they can move up. But the serious candidates should have the stage to themselves and not share it with Williamson or Yang.

[Mr. Morden]

DNC is going to ensure that those polling over 2% are evenly split between the two debates.

https://twitter.com/ZachMontellaro/status/1132017679500566528

"Basically, any two candidates still have the same odds of appearing on the same night (50% for a Bernie Biden clash)."

Ummm...what?  This guy really doesn't understand probability.  No, if there are 8 candidates with a 2% polling average, and the DNC enforces the fact that 4 of them are on one night and 4 on the other night, then (assuming Biden and Sanders are both in that 2% or more category, which seems like a certainty), the probability of them both appearing on the same night is 3/7ths, not 1/2.  By adding this rule, the DNC has marginally decreased the probability of Biden and Sanders appearing on the same night.

[Filinovich]

DNC is going to ensure that those polling over 2% are evenly split between the two debates.

I think I've updated my spreadsheet to reflect this. Call me out if I've missed something.

Ummm...what?  This guy really doesn't understand probability.  No, if there are 8 candidates with a 2% polling average, and the DNC enforces the fact that 4 of them are on one night and 4 on the other night, then (assuming Biden and Sanders are both in that 2% or more category, which seems like a certainty), the probability of them both appearing on the same night is 3/7ths, not 1/2.  By adding this rule, the DNC has marginally decreased the probability of Biden and Sanders appearing on the same night.

By that logic it was never 1/2 in the first place. Before this clarification, it was 9/19. Also Biden and Sanders being at more than 2% isn't "like a certainty" it is a certainty by the current rules. Both have three polls well above 2%. It's literally not possible for them to fall below two.

ls very participation trophiness, trying to reward candidates who aren't even trying. I don't know why they don't like the idea of an undercard debate if they have a breakout moment they can move up. But the serious candidates should have the stage to themselves and not share it with Williamson or Yang.

The reason the DNC doesn't want an undercard debate is because of what happened in the 2016 Republican debates. Their undercard debates received essentially zero attention. That combined with the fact that the DNC wants to project fairness to avoid something like the bias against Sanders in 2016 means they don't want it. I'm not saying that's what they should do, but they do have their reasons.

[Mr. Morden]

DNC is going to ensure that those polling over 2% are evenly split between the two debates.

I think I've updated my spreadsheet to reflect this. Call me out if I've missed something.

Ummm...what?  This guy really doesn't understand probability.  No, if there are 8 candidates with a 2% polling average, and the DNC enforces the fact that 4 of them are on one night and 4 on the other night, then (assuming Biden and Sanders are both in that 2% or more category, which seems like a certainty), the probability of them both appearing on the same night is 3/7ths, not 1/2.  By adding this rule, the DNC has marginally decreased the probability of Biden and Sanders appearing on the same night.

By that logic it was never 1/2 in the first place. Before this clarification, it was 9/19. Also Biden and Sanders being at more than 2% isn't "like a certainty" it is a certainty by the current rules. Both have three polls well above 2%. It's literally not possible for them to fall below two.

Ah, you're right on the latter point.  They are guaranteed 2%+.  On the former point, yes, of course it was 9/19 before.  But now it's 3/7, which is lower.  By adding this condition, they've reduced the probability of Biden and Sanders being on the same night.  The guy writing the tweet still doesn't get how probability works.

[The Other Castro]

On the note of fairness from the DNC, there comes a point where too much action to promote artificial fairness actually creates an unfair system. Nate Silver had a relevant tweet on this subject. Randomly separating candidates into two groups instead of an undercard debate is one thing (which I actually agree with, I think it’s better than an undercard) but this additional step is one purely for the appearance of fairness against the results of the unbiased randomizer. This unfairly benefits the lower tier candidates.

[The Other Castro]

On May 27, Gravel said he was at 38K donors. Also, after a careful reading of the rules, the DNC actually mentioned a preference for top line results in the published pollster memos, and a straightforward analysis would agree that both de Blasio and Bullock have hit 3 separate, eligible polls with at least 1%.

[Mr. Morden]

Renamed this thread to signify that it's a megathread about qualification for all the early debates (will eventually ditch the "early look" part ).

In the near future, I'll look at where things stand on qualification for the September debate, but don't have time to do that right now.

[Holy Unifying Centrist]

Has Bullock qualified yet?

[The Other Castro]

Posting this updated version:



Dispute 1: Whether Bullock's 1% counts in ABC/WaPo Open-Ended 1/25 poll

Dispute 2: Whether de Blasio's 1% counts in Reuters/Ipsos "All Americans" 5/15 poll

Additionally, here is a helpful chart to see which polls are no longer eligible for particular candidates:

[The Other Castro]

From the other debate thread: DNC rules for the 3rd and 4th debates are that open-ended polls are now ineligible, implying that they were previously eligible, which would therefore mean that Bullock has hit three 1% polls and has qualified.

[Mr. Morden]

Castro (the poster, not the candidate) pointed out in the other thread that the September debate qualification will only count polls released from June 28-August 28, and that candidates will need to get 2% in four polls.  Just as a hypothetical example, let’s suppose that the two month period from June 28 - August 28 had the same polls as we got from March 28 - May 28.  Who would have reached the polling threshold if the March 28 - May 28 polls had determined qualification?

By my count, that gives us these pollsters who released polls in that period:
Monmouth (national and IA and NH), Quinnipiac, Fox, CNN, UNH (NH)

That’s it.  And then we have 8 candidates who got at least 2% in all of those polls at least once, plus a few who didn’t:

# of qualifying polls in which they reach 2%, for polls released March 28 - May 28:
Biden 7
Booker 7
Buttigieg 7
Harris 7
Klobuchar 7
O’Rourke 7
Sanders 7
Warren 7
———qualification line———
Castro 2
Gabbard 1
Ryan 1
Yang 1
everyone else 0

So yeah, unless either the quantity of polls picks up *or* the first debate causes one of the lower tier candidates to start regularly reaching 2% in the polls, we will have a very clear have/have not gap in polling, presumably leading to those top 8 candidates getting into the September debate, and no one else.  And that’s assuming that they all get enough donors as well.  Since Booker just made it to 65,000 a few weeks ago, he might not make it to 130,000 in time.

[Mr. Morden]

This story:

https://www.cnn.com/2019/04/08/politics/amy-klobuchar-first-quarter-fundraising-numbers/index.html

from early April said that Klobuchar at that point in time had "nearly 100,000 online donors".  Given that, my *guess* would be that she'd easily make it to 130,000 by the end of August.  So of the top 8 polling candidates, my guess would be that only Booker would be in serious danger of not getting the 130,000 donors needed to qualify for the September debate.

[The Other Castro]

Yang will almost certainly meet the donor requirements for the 3rd and 4th debates, with polling being his biggest hurdle. Plenty of time.

https://twitter.com/AndrewYang/status/1133739571324293121

[The Other Castro]

Donor update:

6/1: Gravel is at 40K donors. His twitter account specifically refers to only the July debate, so he’s given up on June. But, unless we get some dropouts, even qualifying by fundraising alone likely won’t get him into that debate (he’s still not being including in most polls).

https://twitter.com/mikegravel/status/1134886325709156352?s=21

6/1: Gabbard says she’s at roughly 80K donors, 50K away from where she needs to be for the September debate.

https://twitter.com/missbeae/status/1134996261730422784?s=21

[Mr. Morden]

Only 10 days to go until the qualification deadline for the first debate.  In the *past* 10 days, the only movement we've seen on the polling front is an extra poll for Williamson, which moved her up to 3.  So not a lot of time for Bennet.

And it looks like PredictIt has doubts that the DNC is going to count de Blasio's 3rd poll, since he's only being given a 68% chance of participating.

[Mr. Morden]

New CNN poll is out, and everyone who has 1% in it already had 1% in a previous CNN poll, except Bennet and Ryan.  So Bennet and Ryan move up:

Biden 10
Booker 10
Buttigieg 10
Harris 10
Klobuchar 10
O’Rourke 10
Sanders 10
Warren 10
Yang 8
Castro 7
Gillibrand 6
Ryan 6
Hickenlooper 5
Inslee 5
Gabbard 4
Williamson 3 (but also has 65,000 donors, so is in good shape on tiebreakers)
Bennet 3
Delaney 3
Swalwell 3
Bullock 3*
de Blasio 3*
———qualification line———
Kerry 1
Messam 1

Bold = they are in a very precarious position on tiebreakers (if it comes to that), because they have 3 or fewer polls, and all of them are at only 1% in all of those polls, *and* they haven't yet qualified on donors.
Asterisk = Apparently, there's been disagreement on whether all of Bullock and de Blasio's polls really count, so just flagging that even though my guess is that they would count.

This is the worst possible scenario for the DNC.  21 candidates have seemingly qualified, though for two of them (Bullock and de Blasio) there has been some dispute over one of their polls.  So I guess we now get into a lawyerly debate about the DNC rules?  Assuming they count in both cases, then I think a literal reading of the rules doesn’t actually tell you how to resolve the tiebreakers at this point, though a less literal reading would suggest that amongst Bennet, Bullock, de Blasio, Delaney, and Swalwell, you drop whichever of them has the fewest donors.

All I know is, barring some surprise in the next week, exactly one of the five people in bold above the qualification line will be left out of the debate, and I don’t know which one.

[The Other Castro]

Mr. Morden is correct, this is quite the conflict. I believe there may be a Monmouth National poll soon, which would be relevant for all except de Blasio (who already has 1% in Monmouth National). Here's my updated chart of the information:

[Mr. Morden]

https://twitter.com/TrackerDebate/status/1135890100271898625