DNC Changes Debate Qualifications, Excluding Tulsi Gabbard

The qualifying criteria for the next Democratic debate are out, and they manage to exclude the only veteran and only woman of color left in the race: Rep. Tulsi Gabbard (D–Hawaii).

This afternoon, Politico reported that the candidates still in the running for the Democratic presidential nomination will need to have earned at least 20 percent of the delegates awarded thus far in order to participate in the March 15 debate hosted by CNN and Univision in Phoenix, Arizona.

That means that only former Vice President Joe Biden and Sen. Bernie Sanders (I–Vt.), who respectively have 48 percent and 41 percent of the delegates so far, will be on next Sunday’s stage.

Despite her strong showing in the American Samoa caucuses where she won two delegates, Gabbard still falls short of that very high threshold.

Had the Democratic National Committee stuck with its criteria for the last debate it held on February 25—which only required each candidate to have won a single delegate—Gabbard would have qualified.

DNC Communications Director Xochitl Hinojosa foreshadowed this decision on Super Tuesday, saying on Twitter that “by the time we have the March debate, almost 2,000 delegates will be allocated. The threshold will reflect where we are in the race, as it always has.”

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