Keeping Up With The Kandidates—Episode 1: One Year To Go
Written by Amanda Jentsch, Culture Editorial Assistant
As of Nov 30, Election Day is 339 days away. There are currently 21 candidates for president, 18 Democrats and 3 Republicans, including the sitting president (The New York Times, 2019).
To differentiate between the Democratic candidates and allow for the public to compare the political ideas and personality of each one, there is a series of 12 debates, five of which have already occurred. The most recent one notably featured an all-women board of moderators (Feller, 2019).
The sixth debate is fast-approaching, to be held at UCLA on Dec 19, 2019, hosted by PBS and Politico. However, not every single one of the eighteen candidates will be onstage.
To gain that critical facetime—and airtime—in front of voters, candidates must meet two requirements. One: hit 4 percent in at least four approved national or early-state polls, or hit 6 percent support in two approved early-state polls. Two: have 200,000 unique donors with at least 800 donors in at least 20 states by December 12 (Feller, 2019).
As of Nov 26, there are only six candidates who have satisfied those requirements. They are former Vice President Joe Biden, Mayor Pete Buttigieg, Senator Kamala Harris, Senator Amy Klobuchar, Senator Elizabeth Warren and Senator Bernie Sanders (NBC, 2019).
There are four candidates who have satisfied one of the requirements but not both, and the rest are nowhere near the mark. The dates of the remaining six debates and which candidates will speak at them has yet to be announced (NBC, 2019).
As for the Republican side, it is unclear whether or not President Trump’s two challengers—former Congressman Joe Walsh and former Governor William F. Weld—will even be allowed to run in a Republican primary race.
The primary winner is determined by votes from each state’s delegates, with each party and state determining their delegates and voting in a different way (VoteSmart,2019). The issue is, some states may not choose to hold a Republican primary, with the Republican Party citing costs as the main factor in the decision (Isenstadt, 2019).
This bars the other two Republican candidates from possibly gaining those states delegate votes, thus severely impacting their potential for success at the Republican Convention in August of 2020 (Isenstadt, 2019).
This follows with our current historical trend: the last—and only—time a sitting president lost in the primary race for his party was 1856, with James Buchanan defeating Franklin Pierce (Rudin, 2009).
We will continue to report on the presidential progress towards election day. See you next time on Keeping Up with the Kandidates.
Sources
Alexander Burns, Matt Flegenheimer, Jasmine C. Lee, Lisa Lerer, and Jonathan Martin. “Who’s Running For President in 2020?” The New York Times. 24 November 2019.
Alex Isenstadt. “Republicans to scrap primaries and caucuses as Trump challengers cry foul.” Politico. 6 September 2019.
Ben Kamisar, Robin Muccari, and Alex Seitz-Wald. “Which candidates have qualified for the December Democratic debate?” NBC News. 26 November 2019.
“Government 101: United States Presidential Primary.” VoteSmart. 2019.
Ken Rudin. “When Has a President Been Denied His Party’s Nomination?” NPR. 22 July 2009.
Madison Feller. “Here’s What You Need to Know About the 2020 Democratic Party Debates.” Elle. 19 November 2019.