Last night, six of the remaining candidates seeking the Democratic nomination for president gathered at Drake University in Des Moines, Iowa. Former Vice President Joe Biden, Senator Bernie Sanders, Senator Elizabeth Warren, Mayor Pete Buttigieg, Senator Amy Klobuchar, and billionaire Tom Steyer made up the smallest (and whitest) debate stage thus far. However, one notable presidential candidate was missing from Tuesday night: entrepreneur Andrew Yang. As someone who is a strong supporter of Yang’s campaign, I’d like to talk about why his exclusion highlights a clear lack of diversity within the party and an overall unfair primary system.
In order to have qualified for January’s debate, campaigns must have cleared both a unique donor count of 225,000 and received 4 polls at 5% or higher, or 2 polls at 7% or higher in the early voting states (Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina, and Nevada). With well over 400,000 unique contributions, the Yang campaign has long since cleared the first qualification requirement. However, it’s the increased polling threshold that has effectively been suppressing the grassroots energy behind Yang’s campaign.
Although Yang currently has a higher national polling average on Real Clear Politics than both Amy Klobuchar and Tom Steyer, he was missing from last night’s debate. The reasoning behind his absence stems entirely from the lack of qualifying polls. You see, the Democratic National Committee only accepts polls conducted by a short list of approved organizations within a limited time-frame. Between the last debate in December and the end of the qualification window, there have only been 6 released polls that would give candidates the chance to enter. With the knowledge that there would be very few polls coming out during the holidays, the DNC deliberately raised their qualifying polling thresholds in order to lower Yang’s chances of joining the other 6 candidates.
Earlier this year, the Democratic party proudly touted its wide range of candidates as the most diverse field in American history. Yet as the race has continued, more and more minority candidates have dropped out. At this point, only Andrew Yang and Representative Tulsi Gabbard remain as the sole prominent candidates of color. Unless the DNC stops playing favorites with their preferred candidates and plays fair, then it appears that they’re looking to repeat the same sleazy playbook that got Donald Trump elected in 2016.
Although I have very little knowledge of politics myself, I find your perspectives on some of the injustices behind the DNC extremely valid. I especially appreciated your questioning of the DNC boasting its diversity and your commentary on the DNC “playing favorites.” This post encourages me to be more involved in the current political race myself and also leaves me with a questioning eye and a desire to stay on my toes with the things that are said and the ways in which the political race actually unfolds. Your knowledge of the current climate of the race and your awareness of the undertones of injustice are so unbelievably impressive! I look forward to following along and learning more through you, while also hoping to use your blog as a spring-board to search deeper into certain topics myself!