Starting tonight, the contenders for the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination will pitch themselves to the American public. Each candidate will be selling themselves as the person to take on President Donald Trump in the upcoming presidential election.
This year’s Democratic debates will set a record for the number of candidates speaking at a major party’s primary debates. In the 2015 Republican primary debates, there were 17 candidates. However, there will be 20 candidates for the Democratic Party.
The debates will be spread across two nights – Wednesday, June 26 and Thursday, June 27 – with 10 candidates featured each night. Each speaker met the qualifications that they must “register 1-percent support in three qualified polls or have 65,000 unique donors to their campaign with a minimum of 200 different donors in at least 20 states,” according to NBC News.
While the candidates were mixed randomly between the two nights, the Democratic National Committee stipulated that five of the top 10 candidates appear each night. This stipulation was designed to prevent one night from being top-heavy with major candidates and leaving lesser-known candidates for the other night.
The following candidates will speak during the Wednesday debate:
- Mayor Bill de Blasio of New York City
- Cory Booker (New Jersey)
- Julian Castro, former Housing and Urban Development Secretary
- Former Rep. John Delaney (Maryland)
- Tulsi Gabbard (Hawaii)
- Washington Gov. Jay Inslee
- Amy Klobuchar (Minnesota)
- Former Rep. Beto O’Rourke (Texas)
- Tim Ryan (Ohio)
- Elizabeth Warren (Massachusetts)
The following candidates will speak during the Thursday debate:
- Michael Bennett (Colorado)
- Former Vice President Joe Biden
- Mayor Pete Buttigieg (South Bend, Ind.)
- Kirsten Gillibrand (New York)
- Kamala Harris (California)
- Former Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper
- Bernie Sanders (Vermont)
- Eric Swalwell (California)
- Marianne Williamson, author
- Andrew Yang, businessman
During the debates, candidates will not deliver opening remarks but will have a chance to deliver closing remarks. Per NBC, each candidate will have 60 seconds to answer questions and another 30 seconds for follow-ups.
The debates will be held at the Adrienne Arsht Center for the Performing Arts in Miami from 8-10 p.m. each night. The debate moderators will include Savannath Guthrie, Lester Holt, Jose Diaz-Balart, Rachel Maddow and Chuck Todd.
The debates will be broadcast live on NBC and on cable channels MSNBC and Telemundo. In addition, the debates will be streamed on NBCNews.com, Facebook, Twitter and Youtube.
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